As with Joseph Haydn's violin concerto in C major Hob. VIIa:1, the concerto in A major Hob. VIIa:3 breathes a certain Baroque spirit that is full of verve, technical brilliance and a beautiful “Italian” tone. The performer cannot yet expect to find Haydn's joy in experimentation that characterizes his later years. The concerto was most probaby written in the second half of the 1760s for the Hofkapelle of the Esterhazy Princes, possibly for its Italian concertmaster Luigi Tomasini. Our Urtext edition is based on the Haydn Complete Edition, also published by G. Henle Verlag, and is rounded off by sophisticated string bowings and fingerings by Kurt Guntner, and by cadenzas created by Franz Beyer.