How did the music of Haydn and Mozart affect Georg Philipp Telemann’s reputation after his death?

Following the death of Georg Philipp Telemann, his reputation suffered significantly as the emerging musical styles of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart effectively obliterated the older Baroque traditions he represented.

While Telemann had been considered the greatest living composer by his 18th-century contemporaries, the shift toward the Classical period led to a decline in his standing. By the 19th century, as the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel were being reappraised, Telemann’s legacy was unfairly reduced to that of a prolific but superficial composer. It was not until the 20th century that his reputation was restored through more accurate historical and aesthetic studies, which recognized the quality and variety of his extensive body of work.1