The parts they played were simple, if not dull, consisting of fanfare figures and notes thrown in for added emphasis and volume. The orchestral trumpeter of the Classical period cultivated about ten notes - the notes of a major chord at the bottom and half of a major scale at the top. In the early 18th century, composers wrote fabulous, florid trumpet parts in the extreme high register of the instrument (indeed, Bach’s trumpet parts remain a tremendous challenge even on the modern trumpet), but by Haydn’s day this art of “clarino” playing was largely confined to royal courts and monasteries. Playing so high on an instrument as long as a trombone was tremendously difficult, but a good number of players mastered the art. The player could produce its notes in different keys by detaching one section, or “crook,” of tubing and substituting another of different length, but since the player had to stop playing to do this, the standard practice was to “crook” the instrument in one key for an entire movement (the modern trumpet is, in effect, an instrument with three permanent crooks and valves that direct the airflow into one or more of them, giving the player an instant choice of seven different lengths and overtone series). It was capable of playing “natural” notes of the overtone series, which has large intervals at the low end and progressively smaller ones as pitch gets higher, so that the trumpeter could play scales, instead of just bugle-call notes, only by cultivating high notes. To the 18th century, a trumpet was a coiled tube of brass about eight feet long (about twice as long as the standard modern instrument), starting with a mouthpiece at one end and flaring into a bell at the other, with none of the valve machinery in the middle that characterizes the modern instrument. It was written for an instrument that never really caught on (and today is largely unknown even among period-instrument specialists), and for that reason lay neglected for more than century. Haydn’s trumpet concerto is the only significant monument to half a century of experiments in trumpet technology. Orchestration: two flutes, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, strings, and solo trumpetįirst Los Angeles Philharmonic performance: March 3, 1968, Zubin Mehta conducting, with soloist Robert Di Vall

Trumpet concerto in e flat major