Subscribe RSSWhat is the oldest trombone solo written?
Q: My teacher told me it was the Wagensiel concerto per trombone. I wondered if that were true or not.
A: There are several examples of solo trombone music which pre-date Wagenseil's (note spelling) concerto by a long time (well over 100 years). There is a piece by Francesco Rognoni Taeggio from 1620 entitled 'Selva de varii passaggi' which features a solo violin and trombone. There is also Giovanni Martino Cesare's piece called 'La Hieronyma' which dates from 1621. After this time, the trombone, apart from a few sporadic examples, largely fell out of use until the Classical period.
It is not known for certain when the Wagenseil concerto was written and so it is impossible to say whether or not it is the earliest Classical concerto for the trombone. Both the concertos by Johann Georg Albrechtsberger and Leopold Mozart (Wolfgang Amadeus's father) date from 1755 so either one of these or the Wagenseil could have been the earliest.
Andrea Cima composed a Capriccio (1610) "for cornett and trombone."
The English composer John Adson specified trombone in his Courtly Masquing Ayres (1611.)
Tiburtio Massaino composed a Canzona for 8 Trombones in 1608.
Monteverdi included some solo trombone passages in his opera "L'Orfeo" (1607) and Vespro della Beate Virgine (1610.)
Even earlier were Symphoniae Sacrae (1597) by Giovanni Gabrieli, ensemble music which featured plenty of challenging trombone passages.
But if you're specifying solo trombone concertos, I can add another piece to "del_icious's" 18th century nominations: Michael Haydn composed a Concerto in D for Alto Trombone in 1767, though (as "del_icious" has already pointed out) there's no date for the Wagenseil concerto - therefore it's impossible to determine which of these concertos is the earliest.
Hafwen x