J S Bach Versus the Trumpet Player

Bach is not easy. Yes, easy to listen to but performing the works of J S Bach is hard. Especially for trumpet players.

This is a somewhat rewritten excerpt from Three Stages.

In the spring of ‘61 the two year old William Hall Chorale had our first concert with a full, professional orchestra. (I was twenty-five at the time.) We performed two works: Bach’s Christ lag in Todes Banden which required a “D” trumpet (a higher pitched sound from a normal B-Flat horn) and Ralph Vaughn Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem. Of the many oratorios I sang – before devoting my singing to musical theatre – this was my personal favorite. Aside from the beauty of the music and the poetry, I loved it because I got to sing the baritone solos which were both dramatic and easy.

The orchestra comprised musicians from several symphony and chamber orchestras, all studio musicians, and they were among the finest players in the LA area. Rehearsals went well and at about three o’clock the day of the concert we got a call from the principal trumpet player. He had fallen and smashed his lip and couldn’t play that night. He gave us names of several other guys who he said could “cut it” and we got on the phone.

By around five o’clock, through a series of referrals, we finally found an available player but he didn’t have a D trumpet. He said he was familiar with the two pieces and he’d find a horn so Bill hired him.

Bill and I arrived at the auditorium about 6:30 for the 8:00 PM concert. The orchestra was there by 7:00 and we had a partial rehearsal of the Bach. The replacement trumpeter had not found a D trumpet but he claimed that he could play the Bach on a B-Flat instrument using a D-Trumpet mouthpiece. We were skeptical but at that point we had no choice and in the rehearsal he sounded not great but adequate.

Then the concert started and the Bach was the opening piece. Maybe the guy wore out his lip in the rehearsal but for whatever reason he was a train wreck! If Bill had had a gun he would have shot the guy. He finally got him to just stop playing and the rest of the piece was fine without the trumpet solos. He played the Vaughn Williams okay and the concert was, to everyone but Bill and me, a success.

Here’s the other Vaughn Williams solo.

More musical (and dramatic, not to mention comedic) tales will be found when you click here and get Volume I of my memoir trilogy, Three Stages.

 

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