St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church Music Director Dave Len Scott sounded his trumpet to good purpose during a concert performance at the church on Sunday, Sept. 8, accompanied by pianist Tiantian Liang of the Northern Arizona University music faculty. Scott put on a variety show for the occasion, playing selections from more than two centuries of virtuoso trumpet composition on no fewer than six different types of trumpet.
First on the afternoon’s order of business was “The Carnival of Venice,” a Neapolitan folk tune popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Scott made the rippling opening notes seem easy before the music itself took on an easygoing flavor. Cheerful and perky, it was effectively a showcase of fun things to do with a trumpet. Scott delivered good articulation without overemphasis or excessive slurring, even as the piece grew more challenging with fingering and breathing toward the climax.
“I’m fairly happy with that,” Scott joked afterward. He observed that the arrangement for piano and solo trumpet had been made by Herbert L. Clarke in the early years of the 20th century, when touring cornet soloists were regarded as rockstars. “Everybody would swoon,” Scott hinted, and while the Sedona audience might not have gone that far, he did get a roar of applause and a standing ovation.
Next up was Eric Ewazen’s setting of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem “God’s World,” in which the poet sighs, “Lord, I do fear Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year.” Here Scott brought clarity and power to the work, which is subtle rather than flashy. The angst and uncertainty in the middle section were an unnecessary compositional choice, but the outer portions counterbalanced this attitude with their serene dignity.
A short concert etude by Alexander Goedicke followed, offering a nice balance of sound between the instruments and leaving a distinctly Art Deco impression. Galloping, dramatic, brash, confident? It could fairly be called any of the above.
The afternoon’s most substantial piece was a duet reduction of Alexander Arutunian’s Trumpet Concerto.
“I have no excuses if I don’t get it right,” Scott said, remarking that he once won a faculty concerto competition with the piece. The opening measures were reminiscent of the soundtrack from a Western, with the trumpet making a bold curve over the ominous rumblings from the piano. As the andante gave way to an upbeat allegro, the sound painting of an open range likewise transitioned into one of a county fair. The meno mossa passages, for which Scott switched instruments, were suitably subdued as the afternoon’s storm rolled overhead, managing to be both passionate and vaguely wandering, while the piano asserted itself with frenzy during a brief tempo change.
At one point Scott slipped in a mute, immediately creating the unexpected sensation of a smoky jazz club, before sitting back to relish Liang’s piano playing during a prolonged keyboard solo. As for the extended cadenza, it incorporated a variety of themes giving somewhat of a traditional Russian impression, suggesting the composer’s Armenian origins more strongly than any of the preceding material. Uniting not only two continents but two hemispheres, Arutunian’s work could be said to speak to the universality and adaptability of folk motifs.
The duet then offered the first movement from Halsey Stevens’ Sonata for Trumpet and Piano. “It’s breezy and light — and every measure has a time change,” Scott warned the audience. It was bright indeed, like a cowpuncher riding over a ridge at dawn with the saloon piano tinkling in the background. Of course, then the composer ran out of energy or the cowboy reached the watering hole, or both, leading to a subdued interlude before the plainsman rode off again, with the trumpet and piano alternating their flourishes. Scott also took the opportunity to try a quick experiment with a different mute that didn’t quite take.
From then on, the afternoon’s focus shifted to trumpet classics, starting with three of Georg Frederick Telemann’s “Heroic Marches for Trumpet,” for which Liang moved to the fane’s organ and Scott snatched up a piccolo trumpet. The first, subtitled “Mercy,” was elegant and striding, with a dignified second section. Its musical elements did not reflect its subtitle in the slightest. The second march, “Valor,” was likewise misnamed, because it was much more a benediction than a summons to battle, with its moderate tempo and strong organ part implying a stately procession. As for the third, “Tranquility,” it was exceedingly cheerful with brisk short notes and disquieting prefigurations of melodies that would become famous in future centuries, even including a phrase remarkably like part of “Dixie.” Soaring and crystal-clear, the Telemann marches were perhaps the high point of the program.
Scott next teased out the beginnings of the Romantic era with a rendition of the second movement of the Johann Nepomuk Hummel’s Trumpet Concerto, which his teacher, Armando Ghitalla, was the first to record, under the baton of Pierre Monteux. The work’s character changes considerably when performed as a duet, with the mood going from somber to optimistic as the brass instrument draws the drawing-room instrument along with it, and Scott demonstrated very adept handling of its nuances.
Having had a go at the Hummel, he then decided to take on the “other” trumpet concerto, the one by Franz Joseph Haydn, and specifically the exuberant and challenging third movement. It started off gloriously, with Scott frisking his way through the coltish quavers and semiquavers written to show off the trumpet’s potentialities at a time of extensive technological change in music. Scott and Liang got into a small rough patch over their coordination while approaching a series of lower mordents, but pulled it back together neatly. For the cadenza, Scott improvised some band-style passagework that pushed the limits of the trumpet’s range.
After all the heroic excitement, the two artists cooled things off with Alan Hovhaness’s “Prayer of Saint Gregory,” an upward-striving composition for which Liang returned to the organ. A wordless expression of the titular supplication, Scott’s trumpet was a sober, determined and assured voice rising constantly upward in powerful harmony with the organ before settling itself quietly in assurance of redemption.
Sedona’s 2024-25 live music season will continue with the next installment of the Red Rocks Music Festival on Saturday, Oct. 19, followed by the Sedona Symphony’s first performance of the season on Sunday, Oct. 20.
