Concerto in Dis / per il / Corno da Caccia Secondo / Concertato / Violinist Duobus / Viola / col / Basso / Del Sigl. Giovani Mattia Somer
This is the title of the manuscript copy, which originally comes from the monastery of Osek in northern Bohemia.
The composer is very probably the Regensburg musician Johann Matthias Sommer, who served in the court orchestra from 1755 to 1783. Unfortunately, no biographical details are known. The court library in Regensburg lists 18 concertos for transverse flute and 12 concertos for oboe by him. Why only concertos for wind instruments have survived is unclear; perhaps he played oboe or flute in addition to the violin.
If this work was written for a horn player in Regensburg, the most likely candidate is Joseph Fritsch (b. ? – d. after 1806), a native of Bohemia. He was second horn in the Regensburg court orchestra from 1766 to 1785. Before that, from 1752, he had been employed at the court of the Count of Oettingen-Wallerstein together with Joseph Türrschmidt (1725–1800). There, Franz Xaver Pokorny (1729–1794) composed a Concerto per il Corno Secundo Principale in 1754, most likely for Fritsch.
The designation “Corno secundo principale” refers to the range of the solo part: whereas a concerto for “Corno primo principale” usually exploits the virtuoso high register, the corno secondo lies in the middle and low register, with virtuoso octave leaps and the avoidance of extremely high notes.
