Ugh, the stress, the confusion, the emotional rollercoaster of paying taxes. Well, it’s over now – how about something uplifting to get us out of the grave?

On one hand, I feel bad for Johann Nepomuk Hummel, because he is only remembered for one piece – his Trumpet Concerto. On the other hand, it’s not so bad to have your name forever engraved in the annals of history, even if it’s for a single composition. Anyway, despite a large output of music, he is a classical one-hit wonder.

Perhaps what makes this concerto so popular is its place in history. Before Hummel’s time, trumpets didn’t have keys, and tended to play either extremely difficult, sky-high parts, or dull notes that merely added “punctuation” to orchestral music. The 19th century saw an outpouring of new and improved instruments, one of which was the keyed trumpet (holes in the trumpet, like a clarinet or flute – very different from valves, which is what we consider normal for a trumpet these days.) Hummel’s concerto could not have been played on an instrument without valves or keys, so in a sense, it’s the earliest piece of its kind, and the closest thing to Beethoven or Mozart that trumpet players can play. Eventually the keyed trumpet disappeared because the valved trumpet was far superior. The concerto is brilliant and virtuosic, and began a new chapter in the history of the instrument (and the whole brass family, for that matter).