The digital catalogue of the works of Georg Philipp Telemann

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) left behind an extensive oeuvre that is still difficult to survey. With their catalogues of vocal works (TVWV) and instrumental works (TWV), Werner Menke and Martin Ruhnke have laid the foundations for the structured indexing of this corpus of works. Since the publication of the catalogues (TVWV, 2 parts: 1982 [²1988] and 1983 [²1995]; TWV, 3 parts: 1984, 1992 and 1999), however, there has been an immense gain in knowledge in Telemann research. Many a composition that was thought to be completely unknown or lost has been rediscovered and there has been an enormous increase in knowledge for many already known works. Around 330 compositions have been found in recent years and included in the catalogues of works as „deest“ works; in return, the authorship of a number of works by Telemann has been denied. These processes are far from complete and make it clear that the revision of the existing catalogues is one of the most urgent tasks of Telemann research.

In order to achieve this goal, to facilitate access to Telemann's work beyond the printed media and to provide valid data in line with the current state of research, a new project was launched in 2022 in the Centre for Telemann Care and Research of the State Capital Magdeburg (Telemann Centre) in co-operation with the Centre for Digital Music Documentation (CDMD) the Academy of Sciences and Literature | Mainz and with the help of various funding programmes, began to create a digital catalogue of Telemann's works as a starting point for the long-term „Telemann Portal“ project. The digital medium offers the necessary flexibility for Telemann's very dynamic corpus of works, with the catalogues by Menke and Ruhnke serving as the basis. They have been available in digital form at the Telemann Centre Magdeburg since the 1990s and have since been supplemented, modified and expanded with new findings. This valuable material was transferred to the new database structure as the basis for the digital catalogue of Telemann's works. Great importance was also attached to merging the catalogues of vocal and instrumental works.

The digital catalogue of Telemann's works is currently being compiled using the open source software MerMEId (Metadata Editor and Repository for MEI Data) used. The digital catalogue can be accessed via the Telemann portal, which will gradually be expanded to include further areas in addition to the catalogue raisonné. An edition of Telemann's correspondence is currently in progress, and in future documents, poems and other texts are to be published.

The initial considerations regarding the database structure also marked the start of the review of the individual entries, the editing and updating of which is a complex and lengthy process. In addition to the basic data (composer, title in modernised form, original and alternative title, TWV/TVWV number, librettist, remarks and - where relevant - liturgical purpose), the date of composition or publication (if known or to be determined), scoring details and source references must be edited, newly discovered music and text sources added, incorrect attributions to Telemann identified and, where necessary, links and references to other databases such as RISM or VD18, catalogues of works and digital copies entered. For each work, the sequence of movements or movement designations, key and time signature, incipits, instrumentation, etc., and, in the case of sacred works, chorale models are also to be checked or identified in the first place. Performances in which Telemann was involved are also recorded. In addition, references are updated on the basis of the Telemann bibliography (with links) and editions, and discographical information is added.

The catalogue currently contains around 3,800 entries, 200 of which have already been revised. For the other works, the above-mentioned „basic data“ is provided - based on the Menke and Ruhnke directories. These entries can be recognised by the addition „preliminary data set“. The revision of the data records will continue step by step, but it will be years before all entries have been revised and Telemann's surviving works are fully searchable.

The digital catalogue raisonné offers users a wide range of access to Telemann's compositions, from differentiated search options (many are already possible, but work is still being done on searching by incipits and instrumentation) to classifications (by work genre, occasion, instrumentation, etc.) and numerous indexes (titles, persons, locations, indexes of chorales used by Telemann, overviews of volumes and collections as well as of church music works according to the Sundays and feast days of the church year). The possibility of linking related music and texts also helps to make them easier to find and facilitates an overview of Telemann's entire oeuvre: compositions can thus be clearly presented in the context of vintages and collections as well as in their interdependencies.

The work on the digital catalogue of Telemann's works is a long-term project and depends on the networked cooperation of international Telemann research. The higher the level of participation, the faster the revision of the data records can be realised and a well-founded expansion of this knowledge repository can be achieved. Participation or the provision of information is expressly encouraged.