Hummel succeeded Haydn as Kapellmeister in the court of the Esterhazy family, and his Concerto was first performed for them on New Year’s Day, 1804. Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837) also composed his Concerto in E-Flat Major for Trumpet and Orchestra for Anton Weidinger. Haydn began his association with the princely Esterhazy family in 1761 and continued in their employ until his retirement in 1790. The E-Flat Major Concerto was written especially for Anton Weidinger, court trumpeter to Prince Anton Esterhazy. This concerto clearly suited Weidinger, for he kept it in his repertoire for many years.Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) composed his only concerto for trumpet in 1796. The writing throughout the movement provides the trumpeter with virtuosic trills and flourishes in a variety of keys. The Finale, the most light-hearted of the three, conceals a march by Cherubini which at the time of the first performance would have been well known no longer familiar to us, the joke is today usually lost. The following ‘Andante’-serious, often quite dramatic in character-shows the keyed trumpet to have many of the qualities of a wind instrument, providing it with flowing runs and novel trills. The result is a splendid movement for both soloist and orchestra which contrasts the striking opening with a more light-hearted second subject. With the chromatic and tonal flexibility of Weidinger’s new solo instrument, Hummel was able not only to exploit the keyed trumpet’s ability to play expressively in its low register but also to modulate into extreme keys. The opening movement is thoroughly modern in outlook, and grand in scale, form and orchestration, requiring a sizeable orchestra. Many editions have subsequently transposed it into the easier key of E flat our performance retains Hummel’s original key. The key of the composition, E major, was an unusual one, and the work proved to be technically as difficult, if not more so, than Haydn’s work. Weidinger had developed a new version of his trumpet whose fundamental pitch was raised to E: his new trumpet had at least five keys. If Haydn’s concerto was to prove to have been the last concerto written for the trumpet’s old clarino or Baroque style, Hummel’s was to prove to be the first ‘modern’ one, demonstrating the instrument’s technical range and ability to play in keys distant from its ‘home’ key. A pupil and eventually close friend of Mozart who also knew Beethoven well, Hummel stands stylistically at the cusp between the Classical and Romantic eras. It was composed by Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778–1837), who had been recommended by Haydn to become Prince Esterhazy’s Konzertmeister at Eisenstadt. In December 1803 there followed a concerto for Weidinger.
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