The opening movement, in particular, is unusually showy and brilliant. The soloist's opening phrase, for example, would have been impossible to play on a natural trumpet in E-flat, since it contains six notes accessible only with a keyed trumpet. In the work, Haydn fully explores the advances of the new instrument. We are not sure why, but perhaps because four years were needed to master the technical challenges of the instrument. Oddly, Weidinger did not perform the concerto that Haydn wrote for him until March 1800. Haydn met the idea with enthusiasm and produced the final work in just a matter of months.
It was so that in 1796 Weidinger requested his good friend Haydn to write a concerto suited for the instrument. The keyed trumpet found a persuasive champion in the Viennese virtuoso Anton Weidinger (1766 – 1852). A keyed trumpet, invented about 1793, represented a transitional stage on the journey toward that happy and useful solution of the valve. Later, in the 19th century, a satisfactory valve mechanism was constructed, and the modern trumpet was born. The problem with the trumpet in the 18th century was how to get it – easily, or at least reliably – to produce notes outside the natural harmonic series. Such is the case for his trumpet concerto – which was especially challenging for the trumpets available during Haydn’s life. Few of his compositions are ostentatious, though paradoxically, many of his works are actually harder to play than they sound – due to the inability to mask mistakes with the high wire acrobatics on which many ostentatious and crowd-pleasing works rely. Haydn’s lack of concertos was not due to his inability to compose them, but rather his own personal taste and character. Of those that remain, the E-flat trumpet concerto is arguably the most popular of all. Many apparently were written for just a single performance and then set aside, with no eye towards the future. With 108 symphonies, 68 string quartets, and 47 piano sonatas, the catalog of his complete works lists a scant 17 concertos – most of which are lost. For someone who was one of the most prolific composers of the 18th and 19th centuries, Haydn wrote surprisingly few works to feature a soloist with an orchestra.
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