JOSEPH HAYDN’S TRUMPET CONCERTO IN MUSICOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS OF THE PRESENT

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to investigate the stylistic and compositional features of J. Haydn’s E-flat Trumpet Concerto, to highlight its scientific development as a subject of musicological research. The research methodology is based on a comprehensive approach to studying of J. Haydn’s Concert work, in particular his Concerto for trumpet and orchestra in E-flat major. This entailed the application of a number of separate methods, among which the main ones are: historical-comparative, cultural, theoretical generalization, musicological analysis. J. Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto in E-flat major (1796) is the composer’s last work in this genre and the first classical concerto for this instrument. This work was written in support of the experiment and friendship with A. Weidinger, a great trumpeter and the inventor of the valve trumpet with chromatic tuning. After that, the composer wrote nothing more for the trumpet. Despite the certain titularity of the work, its research today is quite insignificant. The Trumpet Concerto of J. Haydn accumulated the evolution of the genre not only in terms of the artist’s creativity and individual style, but also of the era as a whole. After all, J. Haydn’s creative path covered the entire period of development of the classical orchestra, starting with early classical samples and ending with the use of the classical double composition used in the composer's last trumpet concerto. Along with following the spirit of the times and embodying the innovations corresponding to the classical style, many things in J. Haydn’s trumpet concerto remained from the baroque heritage. First, it is the exclusive meaning of each instrument, which crystallized in the Baroque concerto grosso (group concertino) and became the basis of the classical concerto for a solo instrument with an orchestra. Secondly, the interpretation of the solo instrument even by the composer himself as a clarino. This was reflected in the character and intonation of the salt trumpet part, which, compared to the classicist spirit of the entire work, relies on the baroque practice of natural (overtone) scales. However, J. Haydn’s persuasive, free and bold experiments regarding the choice of instrumentation, orchestral balance, timbre instrumental combinations contributed to the development of the concerto genre in the European musical practice of the classical era.