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

A generous collection of Haydn Concertos, Overtures and Dances, this 2CD set offers the Philips recordings of the Cello Concertos and the Argo recordings of the remaining works. Although issued in various reissues, the Marriner/Argo Haydn Concertos have never before been offered collectively, and this collection offers a great opportunity to explore these recordings from 1966–69. Familiar works such as the E flat major Trumpet Concerto and the two Cello Concertos appear together with the little-known Organ Concerto. Also on offer are two sets of German Dances/Allemandes (both making their first appearance on CD) and a pair of Overtures, of which that for Acide e Galatea is a first-on-CD release.

Maurice Murphy, Principal Trumpet of the London Symphony Orchestra, gives stylish performances of the popular trumpet concertos by Haydn and Hummel as well as Jeremiah Clarke’s Prince of Denmark’s March (Trumpet Voluntary) and Purcell’s Trumpet Tune and Air. Also included on this disc, is the concerto by Armenian composer Alexander Arutiunian - a richly romantic work which deserves to be more widely known.

Alison Balsom’s fourth CD for EMI Classics features Franz Joseph Haydn and Johann Nepomuk Hummel’s evergreen trumpet concertos, coupled with concertos by Johann Baptist Georg Neruda and Giuseppe Torelli. Balsom also directs Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen.

The Haydn Trumpet Concerto is arguably the most popular work for the instrument as well as one of the composer’s best known compositions, a favourite of performers and audiences alike for its wonderful melodic invention and challenging virtuosity. Reviewing Alison’s performance with the Milwaukee Symphony in March of this year, the Journal Sentinel wrote, “Alison Balsom's details of attack, release, dynamics and timbre polished Haydn's … Trumpet Concerto into an exquisite little gem. …This concerto … has its moments of brilliant bugling. More often, though, it [shows the short-lived keyed trumpet] capable of a refined sort of expression …. Balsom excelled at both facets of the concerto. She snapped off staccato 16ths with ease and signal calls with clarion purity and power. And she shaped and colored Haydn's gentle, lyrical lines with the grace and warmth of a really good Mozartean mezzo.”

Jonathan Freeman-Attwood’s CD booklet note describes the notoriously-difficult-to-play ‘natural’ trumpet of the Renaissance and Baroque periods and the development of the ‘keyed’ trumpet by the Viennese court trumpeter Anton Weidinger in the 1790s, which inspired the concerto masterpieces by Haydn and Hummel performed on this disc.

The enticing melodic possibilities of Weidinger’s “keyed” trumpet, and indeed the artistry of Weidinger himself, moved Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), then at the height of his powers, to compose his concerto in E-flat for trumpet & orchestra. His last purely orchestral work, the concerto is a “gloriously ebullient and concise masterpiece in which the composer […] conceives a highly distinctive palette to thrust the trumpet into a brave new world.” Interestingly, it was not premiered until 1800, four years after its completion, possibly because Weidinger needed time to master its technical challenges.

Also composed for Weidinger was the Concerto in E Major (often performed, as here, in E-flat) by Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837), prodigy, student of Mozart and, later, of Haydn. Hummel composed his trumpet concerto in 1803 and Weidinger premiered it the following year for members of the Esterházy court. The composer was subsequently appointed music director there, on Haydn’s recommendation and likely helped by the success of his trumpet concerto. The concerto, “a more expansive work [than Haydn’s, takes the modified trumpet] a stage further in variety of idiomatic figuration and harmonic adventure.”

The Concerto in D by Giuseppe Torelli (1658-1709) was composed for the “natural” trumpet and likely performed on feast days in the San Petronio Basilica. The concerto for hunting horn and strings in E-flat by the Czech composer Johann Baptist Neruda (c1707-c1780) was probably written in the 1760s and is an example of a charming, traditional work of its era.

The period after 1750 meant a crisis for the high brass instruments, trumpet and horn. To be sure, the art of playing higher and higher on a simple or 'natural' brass instrument had reached its apogee, but the compositional style had changed. Owing to a new bourgeois idea of society, the trumpet fell out of favour, since it represented the old courtly culture. Felix Weingartner wrote of an anticipatory longing for reform which was in the air at that time. The final reform was brought about by full chromatifica-tion of trumpets and horns resulting from the invention of the valve (just before 1815). On the pathway to this final reform, however, the most intellectual brows were furrowed over the most efficient means of making brass instruments chromatic. The works on this disc represent three steps on this pathway: the explosive expansion of the frontiers of high-register playing by employing the 5th octave of the harmonic series, which had remained more or less unused, from high C upwards, around 1770 (Neruda); the Viennese court trumpeter Anton Weidinger's successful introduction of the keyed trumpet around 1800 (Haydn, Hummel); and finally the establishment of the 'Romantic' trumpet in low F or G with valves after c. 1828 (Kreutzer, Millares). On this disc, the works by Neruda, Haydn and Hummel are performed on modern instruments (although the horn employed in the Neruda concerto was built over 100 years ago). The 'Romantic' trumpet used in the works by Kreutzer and Millares is pitched in low D and E flat, respectively.