Trumpet Concerto in E flat major, Hob.VIIe:1

Having completed his last symphony in 1795 and having just made a start on the series of oratorios and Masses that were to claim most of his time beween 1796 and 1802, Haydn would not have written a concerto at this stage in his career without a special stimulus. That stimulus came from Anton Weidinger, a trumpeter and instrument maker with a mission to establish the superiority of his keyed trumpet over the standard instrument of the day. Equipped with keys to stop or unstop a series of holes bored in its side, Weidinger’s trumpet could produce notes unavailable to the natural trumpet. Although the keyed trumpet has long been superceded by the valve trumpet, which does the same thing rather more reliably and effectively, Haydn was clearly intrigued by the then new potential of a trumpet that could play all the notes of the chromatic scale throughout its range. He was not alone in that but, of all the concertos Weidinger commissioned, only Haydn’s and, rather less spectacularly, Hummel’s have survived in the standard repertoire.

Haydn starts to make Weidinger’s point in the opening bars where the strings introduce a main theme that a soloist armed only with a natural trumpet would not be able to play. But, as the very first solo entry demonstrates, a soloist with a keyed trumpet (or, of course, a modern valve trumpet) need have no trouble with material like this. He can cope with the slowly descending chromatic line the strings had introduced as a secondary idea and, in the development section, he can move with bravura agility through a range of well over two octaves.

The Andante second movement entrusts the trumpet with a tender, pastoral kind of melody normally associated with flute or the oboe and, in the middle section, with modulations that would be daring in any context. But the most effective example of Haydn’s scoring for the keyed trumpet must be the final Allegro, which allies the instrument’s natural brilliance with both its new-found flexibility and its traditional military associations in a tuneful and delightfully incautious rondo.

Weidinger’s trumpet remained in use, incidentally, until 1820 or 1830. Haydn’s concerto almost immediately disappeared from view but resurfaced when the manuscript was rediscovered more than a hundred years later to become much the most popular work of its kind.

Gerald Larner©