Trumpet Concertos

Description

Famous Trumpet Concerti Sonata Opus 2 No.11 - Benedetto Marcello (1686 - 1739)Sonata a cinque No.1 - Giuseppe Torelli (1658 - 1709)Concerto in D Major - Georg Philipp Telemann (1681 - 1767)Concerto in D Minor - George Frideric Handel (1685 - 1759)-(reconstructed by Jean Thilde)Concerto in D Major - Leopold Mozart (1719 - 1787)Concerto in E Flat Major - Joseph Haydn (1732 - 1809) The trumpet has had a long and eventful history, in one formor another, whether to alarm the enemy in battle or to rouse the dead at theDay of Judgement. Fifteenth century princes in Europe saw the instrument as oneto boost the importance of a ruler, Matthias Corvinus boasting a band of 24 trumpetsand the Sforzas in Milan 18 and a dozen trumpeters are listed in the Salzburgarchives in the time of Mozart. The Baroque trumpet, for which Torelli and hiscontemporaries wrote, was confined in range to the notes of the harmonicseries, so that lower notes were widely spaced and step-wise melodies were onlypossible at a high register.Where more was required than a mere bugler's summon tothe cook-house a player had to cultivate the difficult and virtuoso art of clarinoplaying, using the upper partials of the series. The technique was developedparticularly at the basilica of San Petronio in Bologna, home of so manydistinguished instrumental players. Here, in the last decade of the seventeenthcentury, Giuseppe Torelli wrote a series of splendid pieces for GiovanniPellegrino Brandi, who was employed for major festivals at San Petronio forsome twenty years. Many of these compositoins follow the then establishedpattern of theSonata da chiesa (church sonata), with a sequence ofmovements slow-fast-slow-fast, and were designed to mark the beginning of the Mass. The sonata by the Venetian writer and composer BenedettoMarcello, here scored for trumpet and strings, is typical of the existing styleof instrumental music, both in its sequence of movements and in its use of thesolo instrument. A near contemporary of Vivaldi, whom he satirised in his II teatroalla moda, a Hogarthian caricature of contemporary operatic practices, Marcelloand his elder brother Alessandro were gentlemen amateurs in the art ofcomposition, but none the less proficient for that, if less prolific than someof their contemporaries. Telemann, a friend and successful rival of JohannSebastian Bach and god-father of the latter's distinguished son Carl PhilippEmanuel, was educated at the University of Leipzig, where he established the Collegiummusicum that Bach was later to direct after his appointment as Cantor at the Thomasschulein 1723. Telemann was the choice of the Leipzig city fathers for that position,but he wisely chose to remain in Hamburg, where he spent much of his professionallife. On his death he was succeeded as director of music of the five Hamburgcity churches by his god-son. In Hamburg Telemann had opportunities to providemusic of all kinds, for church, theatre and home. Of his 47 survi