Cello Concerto in D

A near contemporary and rival of Haydn, Leopold Hofmann was held in the highest regard in his native Vienna where he served as Kapellmeister at St Stephen’s Cathedral, a position to which Mozart might have succeeded had he lived. Hofmann was a prolific composer of instrumental music and his solo concertos, of which there are nearly sixty for various instruments – including eight for the violoncello - are among the finest written in Vienna during the mid-18th century. As there are no documented performances of any of these works (and Hofmann himself is not known to have played the instrument) it is possible only to hazard a guess at who might have appeared as soloists. Possible candidates include Luigi Boccherini, who played in the Viennese theatre orchestras during the early 1760s, Francesco Alborea, alias Francischello/Francisghella, and Joseph Weigl. Weigl, Haydn's former principal cellist in the Esterházy court orchestra and the recipient of his C major Concerto, moved to Vienna in 1769 and is known to have been a member of Hofmann's orchestra at St Peter's as late as 1783. The present work, one of two violoncello concertos by Hofmann which appeared in Supplement VI (1771) of the Breitkopf Catalogue, probably dates from the late 1760s when Hofmann’s principal position was that of Kapellmeister at St Peter’s. Two copies of the work survive in addition to a version in C major for bassoon and strings. preserved in Stift Kremsmünster. It is a small-scale work, but, like all the composer's concertos, makes considerable technical and musical demands on the soloist. This edition is based on a set of contemporary manuscript parts preserved in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn- Archiv. The second movement is written in the subdominant whereas the Stift Heiligenkreuz copy utilizes the dominant as does the version for bassoon. It is not a large-scale work, but, like all the composer's concertos, it makes considerable technical and musical demands on the soloist.