I started this blog six months ago, knowing that many blogs are begun and abandoned shortly thereafter. I gave myself a goal – one post a day, for one year. Of course this brought up all kinds of questions. Do I know 365 pieces of music? Definitely. Do I know 365 pieces that are so good they’re worth writing about? Well, I wasn’t so sure about that. But here I am, six months from my start – and halfway to my goal.

Partly, this blog is just a place for me to throw some creative energy into and keep my head fresh with new ideas. The other aim is to introduce Art Music – the music I love and have devoted my life to – to audiences who haven’t been exposed to it. So, on its half-birthday, here’s a champagne toast to Art Music, along with a few other things that typically go with opera – cross dressing, nudity, drunkenness, and bad dancing.

FLEDERMAUSMANN!

(The word “Batman” doesn’t really work in German.)

There’s a famous opera by Johann Strauss II called “Die Fledermaus” (“The Bat”). One of these days, I hope somebody writes “Batman: The Opera”. I’m not holding my breath, though. At least we have a fun overture from Strauss to tide us over.

Ugh, the stress, the confusion, the emotional rollercoaster of paying taxes. Well, it’s over now – how about something uplifting to get us out of the grave?

On one hand, I feel bad for Johann Nepomuk Hummel, because he is only remembered for one piece – his Trumpet Concerto. On the other hand, it’s not so bad to have your name forever engraved in the annals of history, even if it’s for a single composition. Anyway, despite a large output of music, he is a classical one-hit wonder.

Perhaps what makes this concerto so popular is its place in history. Before Hummel’s time, trumpets didn’t have keys, and tended to play either extremely difficult, sky-high parts, or dull notes that merely added “punctuation” to orchestral music. The 19th century saw an outpouring of new and improved instruments, one of which was the keyed trumpet (holes in the trumpet, like a clarinet or flute – very different from valves, which is what we consider normal for a trumpet these days.) Hummel’s concerto could not have been played on an instrument without valves or keys, so in a sense, it’s the earliest piece of its kind, and the closest thing to Beethoven or Mozart that trumpet players can play. Eventually the keyed trumpet disappeared because the valved trumpet was far superior. The concerto is brilliant and virtuosic, and began a new chapter in the history of the instrument (and the whole brass family, for that matter).