Georg Philipp Telemann’s12 fantaisies à traversière sans basse,^[1]12 Fantasias for Solo Flute, TWV 40:2–13, were published in Hamburg in 1732–33. An extant copy of the publication, conserved in Brussels, has a spurious title page readingFantasie per il Violino senza Basso(Fantasias for Solo Violin).^[1]The set is one of Telemann’s collections of fantasias for unaccompanied instruments, the others being a set of thirty-six for harpsichord, also published in 1732–33, and two sets published in 1735: twelve for solo violin and twelve for viola da gamba.^[2]

Telemann’s solo flute fantasias are alone in the Baroque repertoire to include movements seemingly impossible on flute: fugues (fantasias 2, 6, and 8–11), a French overture (fantasia 7) and a passacaglia (fantasia 5).^[3]Even though the more limited tessitura and the writing style (e.g. the absence of double stops and chords) refer to a score for traverso, it is more than likely that the fantasias were performed on the violin as well. In 2012, an arrangement for viola solo was published by Euprint.^[4]In this arrangement, through the use of double stops, some many-voiced parts appear as real polyphonic pieces.

This work comprises the following:

The collection is arranged by key, progressing more or less stepwise from A major to G minor. Telemann deliberately avoided keys that are impractical on the one-key flute, i.e. B major, C minor, F minor and F-sharp major. There are two ways to view the overall structure of the collection: one way, in which the work is divided into two parts, is suggested by the fact that Fantasia 7 begins with a French overture, indicating a start of a new section. This device was also later used byJohann Sebastian Bachin Variation 16 of hisGoldberg Variations. Another was proposed by scholar Wolfgang Hirschmann: there are four modal groups of three fantasias: major-minor-minor, major-major-minor, major-minor-major, and minor-major-minor.^[6]