When we think of Telemann and France today, the first thing that inevitably comes to mind is the so-called "Paris Quartets" and Telemann's triumphant journey to Paris in 1737. However, Telemann had been surrounded by French culture since his youth, studying and copying French music. During his years as a student in Leipzig, he cultivated contact with French virtuosos from the Dresden court orchestra. From 1708, he set up a court chapel in Eisenach based on the Versailles model. The majority of his operas were based on French libretti and he himself also worked as a translator. Telemann's preoccupation with French musical culture and his fascination with it thus ran through his entire life.

At the center of this album are four sonatas for transverse flute and basso continuo in the French style. The works are part of a manuscript volume of sonatas, which can be found in the Bibliothèque du Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles under the shelfmark MS 15.115. The Sinfonie à Flûte traverse seule, à la Françoise in B minor from "Der getreue Musikmeister" even bears its orientation in its name. The 36 fantasias for solo harpsichord (TWV 33) belong to a series of works that Telemann published in Hamburg around 1730; 12 of them are clearly in the French taste. in 1728 and 1730 Telemann published two collections of 50 minuets each (TWV 34), in which he presents himself as a musical master of this small, thoroughly French dance form. Works from TWV 33 and 34 round off the CD. The Brussels sonatas can be heard here as first recordings, while some of the other works are heard for the first time in the arrangements presented here.