The period after 1750 meant a crisis for the high brass instruments, trumpet and horn. To be sure, the art of playing higher and higher on a simple or “natural” brass instrument had reached its apogee, but the compositional style had changed. The works on this disc represent three steps on this pathway; the explosive expansion of the frontiers of highregister playing by employing the 5th octave of the harmonic series, which had remained more or less unused around 1770 (Neruda) the introduction of the keyed trumpet around 1800 (Haydn, Hummel), and finally the establishment of the “romantic trumpet” in low F or G with valves after c. 1828 (Kreutzer, Millares).

On this disc, the works by Neruda, Haydn and Hummel are performed by the specialist for historic trumpet Edward H. Tarr on modern instruments (although the horn employed in the Neruda concerto was built over 100 years ago). The “Romantic trumpet” he used in the works by Kreutzer and Millares is pitched in low D and E flat, respectively.