Trumpet Concerto in A-flat major

Arutiunian first planned this concerto in 1943 for Zsolak Vartasarian, principal trumpet of the Armenian Philharmonic; Vartasarian was killed in the war and the score was finished only in 1950, when Haykaz Mesiayan gave the first performance. Timofei Dokshizer made the first recording, introduced it in the United States, and wrote the virtuoso cadenza now normally played. It is cast in a single movement falling into seven continuous sections, with melodic material drawn from Armenian song, and has become the most widely performed twentieth-century trumpet concerto.