Concerto ex D for Horn, 2 Violins, Viola and Basso (Lund No. 13)
The most extensive source of horn music from the first half of the 18th century is a manuscript collection of the Academic Chapel (Akademiska Kapellet), now held in the University Library of Lund, Sweden. Many of the composers represented in it were connected in one way or another with the Dresden court, and it is possible that the copyist was himself a horn player who had visited that city.
List of the horn concertos in the Lund collection
The Wenster collection contains 18 concertos for horn. In the collection's original numbering they are:
No. 1 Schultz – Concerto ex Dis for Horn, Transverse Flute, Violin and Basso → ROM 018
No. 2 Anonymous (Hoffmann) – Concerto ex Dis for Horn, 2 Oboes and Strings → ROM 013
No. 3 Quantz (C. G. Fischer?) – Concerto ex Dis for Horn and Strings
No. 4 Anonymous – Concerto ex Dis for Horn, 2 Oboes and Basso → ROM 019
No. 5 Förster – Concerto ex Dis for Horn and Strings → ROM 341
No. 6 Anonymous – Concerto for Horn, Oboe d’amore and Basso → ROM 020
No. 7 Graun – Concerto ex D for Horn, Oboe d’amore and Basso → ROM 181
No. 8 Graun – Trio ex D for Horn, Violin and B.c. → ROM 182
No. 9 Quantz – Concerto for Horn, Oboe and Strings → ROM 021
No. 13 Anonymous (Hampel?) – Concerto ex D for Horn and Strings → ROM 184
No. 14 Röllig – Concerto ex Dis for Horn and Strings → ROM 022
No. 15 Röllig – Concerto ex D for Horn and Strings → ROM 023
No. 16 Graun – Concerto ex D for Horn and Strings → ROM 024
No. 17a Reinhardt – Concerto ex Dis for Horn and Strings → ROM 025
No. 17b Gehra – Concerto ex D for Horn and Strings → ROM 026
Note: “ex D” denotes the key of D major, “ex Dis” the key of E-flat major.
About the work
This concerto has come down to us without a named composer. It is written for a typical “seconde” horn: the horn moves mainly in the middle register and makes frequent leaps down to low notes. In this respect it resembles the concerto by Reinhardt (No. 17a).
If one considers the Dresden court, and that the collection also contains two concertos by Knechtel, the principal horn player of the court orchestra, this concerto may have been composed by the second horn player, Anton Joseph Hampel (1711–1771). That Hampel wrote concertos is documented by an entry in the 1769 catalogue of the music publisher Breitkopf; however, the incipits printed there do not match the work presented here.
