Georg Philipp Telemann's family forbade him from making music, so he secretly wrote an entire opera by age twelve and taught himself the flute, oboe, violin, recorder, double bass, and viola da gamba. Sent to Leipzig in 1701 to study law, he was quickly running the municipal opera house and poaching university students from rival cantor Johann Kuhnau. This episode follows his path through Sorau, Eisenach, where he befriended J.S. Bach, and Frankfurt, where grief over his first wife's death in 1711 pushed him toward Italian influences and the first known concerto written for solo viola.

In Hamburg, Telemann used a job offer from Leipzig as leverage for a pay raise, inadvertently opening the door for Bach to take the Thomaskirche post. When his second wife's gambling debts exceeded his annual income, he composed his way out of ruin, fought fo ...