Of all Haydn's Viennese contemporaries Leopold Hofmann was perhaps the most successful and popular composer of concertos. He wrote around sixty solo concertos during a twenty-year period (ca 1758-1778) for a variety of instruments including thirteen for flute. Hofmann's two earliest flute concertos cannot be identified and indeed may not survive; they are known only from their appearance in an inventory of music belonging to the Esterházy family made around 1758.
The thirteen extant concertos probably date from the 1760s although it is possible that at least a couple of the works were composed during the 1770s. Since his interest in composing flute concertos is impossible to reconcile either with his professional duties as a church musician or as a performer - Hofmann was a fine violinist and keyboard player – it seems likely that most if not all of the works were composed on commission.
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