O.J.'s Trumpet Page Resources
Joseph Haydn - and his Trumpet Concerto.

(Born 1732 in Austria - died 1809 in Vienna)

Unlike many works, fashionable in their time but which fall quickly from favor, the Haydn concerto still retains a youthful freshness even today.
It is the composers's most popular instrumental concerto. (Edward H. Tarr, ITG Journal, September 1996)

The Concerto was written in 1796 for a Viennese trumpeter, Anton Weidinger, the developer of the keyed trumpet.
Weidinger started developing his keyed trumpet in 1793 and this trumpet (unlike the earlier natural trumpet) had 4-6 holes or keys.
It could produce all the chromatic tones between (Eb) G and 3Bb,but would usually be played at a lower pitch because of the range of the concerto.
This Eb trumpet was evidently a forerunner of his 4-6 keyed trumpet (c.1801).

There is some evidence that Weidinger knew Haydn before requesting the Concerto, and Haydn may well have been the best man at Weidinger’s wedding in 1792.

Rediscovery of the concert:
After the first performances by Weidinger, the concerto was forgotten. In the late 1800 it was rediscovered.
Paul Handke (who moved to USA and was trumpeter with Chicago Symphony Orchestra), wrote down the solo trumpet part from the original Haydn maunuscript in 1899.
In 1908, Professor Franz Rossbach, Solo-Trumpet with the Wien Philharmonik performed it again in Vienna.
Then in March 1914, Eduard Seifert (1870-1965), Solo-Trumpet with the Dresdner Staatskapelle  performed the concerto in Dresden. Seifert copied the manuscript from Rossbach.
The first time that the Concerto was heard in England was 30 March 1932. The performance was a BBC broadcast and the trumpeter was Ernest Hall. (See Brian Moore's essay below)

Recordings of the concert:
Thursday night, June 23, 1938, Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto was again broadcasted by the BBC. Soloist was the English trumpeter George Eskdale. He played the second and third part, (Andante and Allegro).
This broadcast was later made into a 78 rpm phonograph by Columbia Records (Col. 70106-D). It is believed to be the first recording of the Haydn Trumpet Concerto.

Here is a list of Haydn Trumpet Concerto recordings.

Other resources:
Neil Davidson: "Comparison between J. Haydn Trumpet Concerto in Eb and A. Arutiunian Trumpet Concerto in Ab". Here is the whole comparison as PDF-file. (Acrobat Reader  - version 3.x or higher)

Piano Accompaniment: .. the concerto in MIDI version, and MUS version (Finale 98). The files are packed in ZIP format.

In september 2005, trumpeter Brian Moore wrote an essay called "Haydn's Trumpet Concerto in the Twentieth Century".
Here is the essay (in PDF format).

Part of this essay by Brian Moore, was then used for an article (January 2007, ITG Journal, page 40 - 42).
The article (here in PDF-format) was called:
Haydn's Trumpet Concerto: The Tempo and Articulation of the Andante Movement"

There is also an article by Brian Moore in ITG Journal, June 2006:
The Rebirth of Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto in England: Ernest Hall, George Eskdale, and the BBC

Thanks to Verena Jacobsen Barth for information and to Brian Moore for letting me use his excellent essay!