Georg Philipp Telemann's compositions for services on Sundays and feast days of the church year formed a widespread repertoire of Protestant church music in the 18th century. Telemann preferably conceived them in vintages, whose individual church music was are characterised by formal and stylistic similarities. These physiognomies, which are based on diverse correlations of text and music, are sometimes referred to in contemporary year names. The so-called Sicilian Vintage, based on texts by the Eisenach government secretary Johann Friedrich Helbig (1680-1722), was commissioned by Duke Johann Wilhelm of Saxe-Eisenach, whose "Kapellmeister von Haus aus" Telemann had been since 1717. The music enjoyed great popularity beyond Eisenach. Performances can be traced to Bayreuth, Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg, Roßla and Zerbst, as well as other places. This study examines the history of the origin and reception of the vintage as well as its textual and musical specificity. It also addresses the question of the extent to which characteristics of a "Sicilian style" can be discerned and harmonise with the notions of Arcadian music that have become topos of Arcadian music. Within the framework of an extensive source-philological scribal questions, practical performance phenomena and editing processes are discussed.
