He was not far distant from Hanover and Wolfenbüttel, whose famous chapels were centres of the new style. He went thither often. In Hanover he learned the French manner; at Wolfenbüttel the theatrical style of Venice. The two courts had excellent orchestras, and Telemann zealously investigated the character of the various instruments.—"I should perhaps have become a more skilful instrumentalist," he says, "if I had not felt such a burning eagerness to learn, in addition to the clavier, violin and flute, the oboe, the German flute, the reed-pipe, the viol de gamba, etc. … down to the bass viol and the Quint-Posaune (bass trombone)."—This is a very modern characteristic; the composer does not seek to become a skilled performer on one instrument, as Bach and Händel on the organ and the clavier, but to learn the resources of all the instruments. And Telemann insists on the necessity of this study for the composer.
At Hildesheim he wrote cantatas for the Catholic Church, although he was a convinced Lutheran. He also set to music some dramatic essays by one of his professors, a species of comic-opera, in which the recitatives were spoken and the arias sung.
However, he was twenty years of age; and his mother (like Händel's father) would not hear of his becoming a musician. Telemann (like Händel) did not rebel against the will of the family. In 1701 he went to Leipzig with the firm intention of studying law there. Why should it have befallen that he had to pass through Halle, where he very fittingly made the acquaintance of Händel, aged sixteen, who, although he was supposed to be following the lectures in the Faculty of Law, had contrived to get himself appointed organist, and had acquired in the
