Trumpet and Friends Recital

On Tuesday night, I attended a concert held in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall in the Fine Arts Center on campus. It was called "Trumpet and Friends". I knew this concert was not going to be one bit enjoyable when it began with a middle aged, bald, average-looking man with no speaking skills rambling on about the twelve sons of Jacob. For a moment I wondered what Baptist Church I had stumbled into, but no, this was supposed to be a concert. As he stumbled and stuttered from one mangled word to the next, he managed to read my, and perhaps everyone else's mind, and say "I can toot a horn but I'm sure not good at public speaking." (insert vacant smile). Anyway, once the Bible thumper was done quoting unrelated excerpts from the Bible, and imposing his stupid views on Marc Chagall's "The Twelve Tribes of Israel," he began to "toot". His tooting was played according to Petr Eben's "Windows after Marc Chagall," and it was not that bad, surprisingly. So, he actually played the trumpet well, which is why they allowed him on stage, I suppose. The accompaniment of the organ, however, was not a pleasurable addition. I am not familiar with other works by Petr Eben, but judging by this performance, I never want to listen to another note this man wrote. I can appreciate polyphonic music, but this could hardly be refered to as music. The trumpet's resounding Jewish flair was interesting and complex (was this lost on the trumpeter?), however the organ's purposefully shrill "melodies" made for head pounding irritation. I am hardly exaggerating when I say it sounded terrible on purpose. I hate that type of music. Couldn't wait to get out of there. Note to Trumpet: the organ is NOT your friend.

Luckily, the next performance included a much more pleasant friend of the trumpet, the String Quartet. There's really not much to say about their performance save that it was interesting, melodic, and very pleasurable. The violins, viola, and cello were played in all their harmonious glory, and I could tell that these performers were very well rehearsed, yet their intensity and passion was unwavering. The same trumpeter from the first performance played in this performance, and his talent was much more apparent. (It didn't hurt that he did not speak at all prior to playing).