I played the trumpet.

Dvorak: Slavonic Dances, Opp. 46 & 72, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Rafael Kubelik, cond.

A piano player's life can be a lonely one. The Desert Fathers of the second and third centuries provide the model existence for one who chooses to spend hours and hours and hours in a practice room laboring over passages from almost any one composition from the single largest solo instrument repertoire in all of music. I've seen it in other piano players. "Do you want to join us for pizza?" "Come have coffee with us." "Do you have time to catch a movie?" Nope. Sorry. My instrument's repertoire is bigger than yours. I'm very busy. But let me know if you need an accompanist.

I had an ace in the hole, though. I played the trumpet. My parents bought it for me. Dad told me many times. "As long as we paid for it, you might as well play it."

In late August of 1984, the Pride of the Dakotas had me in its trumpet ranks at South Dakota State University. Let's be clear: I was an awful trumpet player. I didn't practice. There was no interest in getting any better. And as far as I was concerned, the trumpet served only as a doorway to my musical social life.

One day after marching band practice, Dr. W. called over all of those who had been in the SDSU Symphonic Band the previous spring. I heard later that Dr. W. had announced arrangements for the Symphonic Band to take a tour of Mexico the following spring. Elation and profound angst flooded my psyche. How could I win a place in this ensemble? I had played the trumpet for eight years and had no way of proving it.

The previous spring, while a senior at Sioux Valley High School, somehow I won a place in the South Dakota All-State Band. It was one of my father's prouder moments. I had the best seat in the band, too: second to last chair in the trumpet section. I only had to be better than one guy, and to him ... I WAS GOD!!! I figured that this would be the height of my trumpet career.

But this. Mexico!! Wow. My travels up to that point had taken me to Rochester, MN, Minneapolis, MN and Colorado Springs, CO, by way of Nebraska. I always imagined I would get to visit great places in the world but I didn't think it would happen this soon. I needed more practice time.

Well, I went in and splat and spluttered my way through an audition and suffered through two torturous evenings while the final decisions were made. The trumpet gods threw me a bone and placed me in the 1985 SDSU Symphonic Band. Where? Second to last chair in the trumpet section.

All veterans of SDSU Symphonic Bands have war stories of the year's first concert. It's always the Saturday night concert of the South Dakota Bandmaster's Convention during the first week in February. There more than likely has been only five weeks to rehearse. The conductor has chosen a program that is probably just one quarter inch beyond what is possible. And all of the state's band directors will be there. Recipe for disaster. Let me tell you, however, that Dr. W. picked AWESOME music that evening, all in anticipation of our upcoming trip to Mexico.

And the trip to Mexico came and went. We saw a mariachi band, stayed in an Olympic village, petted iguanas (yech), visited the silver mines of Taxco, and watched the cliff divers in Acapulco. There was a major snowstorm in the midwest while we were playing on the beach, and a rogue wave stole away my watch and my glasses. The concert venues were for the common people and they treated us like superstars.

But my finest memory is of the beautiful music that we had the privilege to play together on that cold night in February, with my parents out in the audience sitting with some of the finest musicians in the state. And we played H. Owen Reed's haunting La Fiesta Mexicana, Ron Nelson's rousing Rocky Point Holiday, and John Williams' stirring Olympic Fanfare. And for a transcription, and, by the way, for a rare treat, Dr. W. selected a collection of the Slavonic Dances of Antonin Dvorak.

The Slavonic Dances are of Mr. Dvorak's most popular and most memorable works and are in two sets: Opus 46 and Opus 72. These are the pieces that won Mr. Dvorak his fame and fortune. Though they are originally written in the style of Johannes Brahms' Hungarian Dances, that is to say for piano, 4 hands, I know of them in the orchestral versions. This passionate music reveals Mr. Dvorak's Czech upbringing and, though original in all of its melodic ideas, is unapologetically nationalistic.

My mother received this album from me as a stocking stuffer at Christmas time a few years ago. As I recall I got it on sale in Minneapolis. Mom is probably the only woman in her tiny town with cable internet, a MacBook, an iPod, and Bose speakers. I heard this in her living room a few days after Christmas and savored sweet, sweet nostalgia.

The vigor and fire of the Slavonic Dances roamed around in my head for months after the trip to Mexico. This happens to me with more frequency as I get older. This past July, I played Mr. Dvorak's Piano Quintet in A Major, Op. 81, and my ear wouldn't let me listen to anything else for a long time. You know that an impact has occurred when the music of a certain project attaches itself to the iPod inside and won't let go.

Credits: Dr. W. for being my audition judge in the 1984 South Dakota All-State Band. Thank you. And to G. and A. Apland for purchasing a trumpet. You're awesome.