The most extensive source of horn music from the first half of the 18th century is a manuscript collection of the Academic Chapel, 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. The copyist may well have been a horn player who had visited that city.
List of the Horn Concertos in the Lund Collection
The Wenster collection lists 18 concertos for horn (not 17, as is usually stated). The numbers follow the original numbering of the collection:
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)
Lund No. 11: Johann Georg Knechtel
Concerto ex Dis major for Horn, 2 Violins, Viola and Basso
Johann Georg Knechtel was a member of the Dresden court orchestra from 1734 to 1773. Little has so far been established about his origins. Until 1756 he was active there as a horn player, at first together with the second horn player Andreas Schindler, and from 1737 with Anton Joseph Hampel (1711–1771). Later he played viola in the orchestra.
This edition is based on the manuscript copy from Lund (S-L/Saml. Wenster J:1-17).
The orchestral parts are available as a set of 3/3/2/3. Because the range is extreme for horn players, an additional corno da caccia part in B-flat has been edited.
