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by Martin Bookspan HAYDN'S TRUMPET CONCERTO AT the age of sixty-four, in 1796, Franz Josef Haydn was at the height of his fame and power. He was still fresh from his two triumphant visits to London earlier in the decade that had produced his set of twelve " London" Symphonies, those miraculous works that are the summation and fulfillment of a creative lifetime. By 1796 Haydn had also composed all eighteen of his operas and all but nine of his numerous string quartets. The "old man" was far from written out, however; during the next half-dozen years he produced several of his greatest Masses, among them the "Nelson," "Theresien," and "Harmonie," as well as two magnificent oratorios, The Creation and The Seasons. But before turning his attention to these large and profound works, Haydn wrote a relatively brief and lighthearted Trumpet Concerto in E-flat Major. The score, as it turned out, was the composer's last purely orchestral one, a fitting valedictory from the master. The immediate impetus for Haydn's Trumpet Concerto was the invention, in the 1790's, of a keyed trumpet that liberated the instrument from its subjection to the notes of only the natural harmonic series and allowed it to play all the notes of the chromatic scale and to modulate from one key to another. The developer of the keyed instrument was the Vienna court trumpeter, Anton Weidinger, and Haydn wrote his concerto for him. In his invaluable book, Haydn, a Creative Life in Music (W. W. Norton, Inc., 1946), Dr. Karl Geiringer writes: "The concerto is predominantly diatonic, although there are chromatic passages even in the deeper register of the instrument. Great demands are made on the nimbleness of the trumpet, and in the Allegro runs of sixteenth notes are not unusual." Geiringer goes on to say that the holes in the keyed trumpet detracted considerably from the instrument's brilliance and evenness. Despite the super'--quality of Haydn's concerto, the keyed trumpet quickly passed into history when, in 1813, the first valve trumpets were introduced. The valve trumpet can cope with all the demands made by Haydn's concerto, and it is the instrument on which the work is always played. The opening Allegro of the concerto is in clear-cut sonata form, with an orchestral introduction preceding the initial entrance of the solo trumpet. The principal material of the exposition is given to the trumpet. In the development there is a modulation to C Minor, and near the end of this section some strange and unexpected harmonies darken the scene before the music shifts back to the bright sunlight of the E-flat Major home tonality for the recapitulation. The Andante movement recalls "the serious restrained beauty of the late Schubert" to Haydn scholar H. C. Rob bins Landon. It is in straightforward three-part form, and its principal theme has reminded more than one analyst of the slow movement that Haydn was to write some months later for his "Emperor" Quartet, with its variations on the melody that became the Austrian nation al anthem under the title Gott, Erhalte Franz, den Kaiser (God Save Emperor Franz). The concluding Allegro is in rondo form. The theme, first stated by the violins, is taken up by the woodwinds and then by the solo trumpet. Throughout the movement, the trumpet has spectacular runs and figurations, and the music is rollicking and ebullient. Despite its immediate attractions, Haydn's Trumpet Concerto did not really enter the repertoire until the late 1930's, when the British Broadcasting Corporation produced a performance of the last two movements of the work. Those two movements were subsequently recorded (by the British trumpet virtuoso George Eskdale), and the resulting single 78-rpm disc was one of the glories of the pre-LP era. Since the introduction of the long-playing disc, the Haydn Trumpet Concerto (in its entirety) has been one of the most frequently recorded of all works. THERE are currently more than a dozen different recorded performances of the concerto available, but apparently none of them exist in either reel-to-reel or cassette tape format. Of the disc versions, my own favorite is the one by Timofey Dokschitser with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra conducted by Rudolf Barshai (Melodiya/Angel SR 40123). A Ukraini an, Dokschitser has been the trumpet soloist of the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra in Moscow since 1945. His technical facility is awesome; he has a smooth, even tone in all registers, with total control of the dynamic spectrum. Louis Davidson, professor of trumpet at the University of Indiana's School of Music and for more than twenty years solo trumpet player of the Cleveland Orchestra, has characterized Dokschitser's playing as "completely controlled" and possessing "disciplined abandon." These qualities are everywhere evident in his superbly assured performance of the Haydn Trumpet Concerto. Of added interest is the cadenza Dokschitser plays near the end of the last movement; it imaginatively incorporates the principal theme of the slow movement and inter weaves it with the buoyant rondo theme of the Finale. Barshai and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra are splendid collaborators throughout, and the Russian engineers have reproduced it all in clear, well-balanced sound. A final felicitous aspect of the Dokschitser recording is the disposition of the orchestral strings. Unlike too many present-day conductors, who are insensitive to such matters, Barshai quite properly separates the violins, first violins to his left, seconds to his right. As do so many works of the Classic and early Romantic periods, Haydn's Trumpet Concerto abounds in antiphonal writing for the first and second violins; only by separating the two sections can the composer's intent be fully realized. Although in my opinion no other re cording of the Trumpet Concerto really measures up to the exalted one of Dokschitser, there are several good ones in the catalog. Among these I would cite those by Maurice Andre (Deutsche Grammophon ARC 198415), Martin Berinbaum (Vanguard VCS 10098), Bernard Jeannoutot (Angel S 36148), and Alan Stringer (Argo ZRG 543). ---------- Mr. Bookspan's 1973-1974. UPDATING OF THE BASIC REPERTOIRE is now available in convenient pamphlet form. Send AL-41- 250 and self-addressed #10 envelope to Susan Larabee, Stereo Review, 1 Park Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016 for your copy. ---------- Also see: MELCHIOR RETURNS TO THE MET--A little ceremony and a lot of sentiment. WILLIAM LIVINGSTONE DIONNE WARWICKE--Still working hard on her second career. ROBERT WINDELER |
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