Grappling With Dualities

Description

"I wanted to do a trumpet ensemble work for thirteen B-flat trumpets that would pit Good against Evil. Six 'evil' trumpet players (with Harmon mutes) grapple with seven 'good' trumpet players (with cup mutes). I used a fairly well-known technique of translating words into musical notes: for the 'good' melody I used the first words of the Bible, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth"; for the "evil" melody I used George Carlin's seven words that you can't say on the radio. The grappling takes a number of musical forms. All thirteen trumpets with their respective mutes end on an E-flat and hold it as long as they can. The player holding the note longest is the winner (good or evil)." - Dave Baldwin 1994