Live 20th-century classical music in College Station!

OK, that makes for a good day, and a bit more feeling of well-being down here.

A&M’s Department of Performance Studies put on a concert at a CS church. Free, to boot, and we journalists always groove on that.

A former A&M-Kingsville trumpet prof now at U. Maine, a current Kingsville piano prof performed, with an A&M main campus prof on one piece that also had a trombone part.

Four of the five pieces, including the trio, were 20th-century. That included trumpet settings of two, early, tonal vocal pieces by Alban Berg, a divertimento (the trio piece) by Boris Blacher, the great trumpet sonata by Paul Hindemith and the Slavic Fantasy by Carl Höhne, which had a bit of a quasi-gypsy, quasi-klezmer sound. Heck, try getting a chamber ensemble in Dallas to do that much relatively modern stuff!

Hindemith horns in
Trumpets each instrument
With a modern sound

Music to my ears
Introspective, pondering
As he did himself

Exiled by Hitler
His music not to Nazi style
He reflects the war.