"Cityscapes" is a challenge in all the right ways

From NTC 2009, Grand Valley State University: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLsNbsEUfpA

The UI trumpet ensemble is looking at tackling this piece this semester, so I took a look at it. Firstly, it's very 'heavy'. It sits low on the trumpet register for most of its duration and is made up of a lot of persistent tempo challenges. The rhythms themselves are not absurd, but the way bell-tones and melodies are passed between parts, it's impressive how GVSU is able to maintain a consistent tempo throughout. The scalar flourishes lay very well on the instrument and are not terribly exhausting.

This piece almost feels like an ensemble etude. It's challenging and interesting, sure, but the challenges are compartmentalized. The main melody rests squarely on the first trumpet player for the beginning of the piece, and is only transferred between parts in the recapitulation. While the melody glides on top of the other four players, they must contend with maintaining a consistent tempo and matching crisp articulations between both the low and middle registers. The sixteenth-note flourishes are intermittent, but take a look at 5:20, they take over the entire ensemble. The challenge now is maintaining tempo in the fingers rather than in the tongue. That may not seem like a big deal, but it's actually harder to do on easy parts because the fingers want to go on autopilot. The danger here is that each trumpet player must resist the urge to play their sixteenth notes like a grace note flourish.

The second movement, about 3:00 is a tuning minefield. It utilizes close harmonies across several registers and given the various tuning tendencies of the instrument that can cause a lot of unwanted crunches. Then, at about 7:30, there is a fantastic breakdown section that utilizes are wonderful extended technique I've never seen in an ensemble before. I cringed a bit for their mouthpieces.