Concertino for Trumpet and Seven Solo
Instruments
Karl Amadeus HARTMANN
(1905-1963)
Hartmannfs
Concertino was composed around 1933 and premiered by Professor Nikolay on
August 12th 1933 during a Musical Congress in Straatsburg
(Strasbourg, France), conducted by Dr. Hermann Scherchen. After the performance
Hartmann took the score with him and tried to find other brass players who would
be interested in his composition, but he could not find anyone with the
technical skills demanded by the piece. After years of searching, Hartmann
visited Amsterdam in 1956 and gave the score, written with a lead pencil, to the
first trumpeter, Marinus Komst, of the Concertgebouw Orchestra. Unfortunately
Komst did not perform as a soloist in those years; perhaps this was his reason
for not having returned the score. After some time Hartmann forgot whom he left
the music with.
After retiring from the Orchestra, Komst gave the Hartmann score to one of his former students who also chose not to perform the piece. This trumpeter also studied with Freddy Grin at one point. It was Grin who eventually convinced his former student to return the score to Frau Professor Elisabeth Hartmann, who was almost 90 years old then. She was extremely thankful to finally be able to see the music that has been mentioned so often by her late husband, who truly lamented having lost the Concertino then.
The Concertino is scored for Solo trumpet with Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Bassoon and Contra-Bassoon, French Horn in F, Trumpet in C and Tuba. The three movements are entitled Toccata (Lebhaft), Lied (Langsam) and Quodlibet (Lustig and Presto).