J. G. Albrechtsberger (1736-1809)

Reine Dahlqvist has just finished his master's thesis on the keyed trumpet for the University of Goteborg, and is presently working on his doctoral dissertation on the further history of the trumpet.

In 1962, Mary Rasmussen drew attention to a concertino with trumpet by Johann Georg Albrechtsberger (1736–1809)². The most arresting feature about this work, according to Miss Rasmussen, is that it contains a part for chromatic trumpet. Until now, it had been assumed that Joseph Haydn's trumpet concerto, written in 1796, was the first work for a keyed trumpet. Albrechtsberger's piece, however, was written in 1771, and since the trumpet part was too flexible to be played on a slide trumpet, Miss Rasmussen concluded that a keyed trumpet would be the most likely instrument. In this case, the keyed trumpet must have been invented well before 1796.

To support her case for the keyed trumpet in Albrechtsberger's concertino, Miss Rasmussen showed that it contained passages similar to others in Haydn's and Hummel's concertos for keyed trumpet. Albrechtsberger's and Hummel's works, for example, have similar broken chords. (See musical examples 1–5.) Both the Albrechtsberger and Haydn works are in the not too common trumpet key of Eb.