This is a correspondence with Graun, in 1751–2, on the subject of Rameau.[1] Graun had sent Telemann a long letter in which he severely criticised the recitatives in Castor and Pollux. He blamed the lack of naturalness, the false intonations, the arioso introduced inappropriately in the recitative, the changes of time made with insufficient motive, which, he says, "cause difficulties for the singer and the accompanist; for they are not natural. And I hold it to be a capital rule that one should not introduce any unnatural difficulty without an urgent reason." In short, he declares that "French recitative singing sounds to him like the howling of a dog;[2] that French recitative pleases nowhere, save merely in France, as he has found by experience, all his life long;" and he derides Rameau. "Rameau, whom the Parisians call the great Rameau, the honour of France. … He must have ended by believing it himself: for according to Hasse he says that he cannot write anything bad. … I should much like to know where one is to find his rhetorical, philosophical and mathematical science; in melody or in polyphony? … I confess that I have made little or no study of mathematics; I had no opportunity of doing so in my youth; but my experience has shown me that the mathematical composers accomplish nothing of any value. Witness Euler, who used to write false harmonies …"
Telemann replies:[3]
"Most nobly born, most honourable Sir and my
