A Conversation with Brian Wendel

What was your first exposure to this piece, and what made you select it for Summers at Severance?

There’s a great Canadian trombonist, Alain Trudel, who started as solo player but later branched out to conducting. His recording was probably one of the first I heard, with Yannick Nézet-Séguin on piano, and it’s a great musical rendition. The concerto is a classic for us, and even if the audience doesn’t know Rota by name or this particular piece, they will feel familiar with his music, whether it’s through his Godfather scores or his other film music. The work also demonstrates the rich and powerful tone that the trombone really thrives at, so it’s a great way to introduce the instrument’s more soloistic sound to the audience.

How does it compare to other concertos for trombone?

There’s a simplicity and agility to Rota’s voice which comes through in both the solo part and the orchestra. We sadly don’t have any concertos from Beethoven or Brahms, so it’s nice to play a piece by someone who also wrote a lot of music. And though there are some challenges with his writing, it’s very comfortable for the player and doesn’t press the boundaries of the instrument like more modern trombone concertos.

What does your preparation look like for a concerto versus a normal subscription week at the Orchestra? How does it change, if at all?

For one thing, my preparation starts way sooner than it would for a typical concert week even though the nuts and bolts of my practice stay the same. As a brass player, you have to constantly “knead the bread,” so to speak, and spend a lot of time on the fundamental skills every single day. For the Orchestra, any given week will have a different set of challenges and the repertoire determines my practice. For the concerto, it’s a different level of pressure, obviously. I need to have a heightened reliability, commit the piece to muscle memory, and practice staying clear-minded. I basically want to have all the parts clicking behind me, so I don’t have to ask any questions in the moment like, “Did I count the right amount of rests?” I’ll also play the concerto once or twice this summer, with piano reduction, just to get a chance to play it in front of people. The key is to enjoy it when you’re on the stage and not think about all the preparation you did or didn’t do.

This will be your concerto debut with The Cleveland Orchestra. What are you looking forward to in terms of getting to step into the solo spot?

I expect to feel a combination of excitement, joy, and nerves all bundled up at once. It’s a unique opportunity to share the trombone in a way that the audience — and maybe even some of my colleagues — might have never heard. I also hope to let the music speak for itself and bring Rota and his music to life in a way that’s authentic, yet current and spontaneous.

Wendel also wrote the following reflection about the concerto and some of the musical characteristics one can expect to hear in the piece:

I wanted to take my first dip into a solo performance with The Cleveland Orchestra through a beloved classic. While there are a number of even more standard works for trombone, like the David Concertino and the Grøndahl and Tomasi concertos, it’s nice to play music by a composer whose name is celebrated outside of their singular, famous concerto. Rota’s music is comfortable, familiar, and tonal, and, throughout this concerto, he demonstrates the instrument’s rich and powerful tone.

In the concerto, there are moments of tender sweetness, which are not typically associated with the trombone (although that narrative is beginning to change, partially through an increase in both new commissions and career soloists). The concerto also has plenty of fun moments featuring bouncing octave displacements, chromatic crunchiness, fanfare declamations, and interplay between the soloist and ensemble. Additionally, a lot of the work’s expressive power comes through ascending legato passages, which build tension and excitement.

Rota also excels in orchestration. He can conjure a full and exhilarating sound from the ensemble without overwhelming the listener, and there is a simplicity and flexibility to his voice that feels just right. This concerto is lightly orchestrated, with one or two wind players per section. Even though the trombone could cut through a bigger ensemble, this allows the soloist to play more lightly, without exerting too much muscle. I think Rota wanted also to illuminate the richness, strength, and agility of the trombone, and felt that a larger ensemble would detract from the focal point.

Rota was incredibly prolific in his career, most notably for his excess of 150 film scores. He was adored by his audiences and had an innate knack for communicating through any style, adopting characteristics from his favorite composers, including Prokofiev, Verdi, and Rossini. He was like a puppeteer orchestrating a play between old and new, adapting his writing to flow between influences and time periods. While he was most famous for his film scores, to me, his concerto compositions sound the most original.

Rota once said that he saw himself as a classical composer who also wrote film music, and this rings true to my ears. He felt happiest when composing and did everything he could to give listeners a taste of that joy: “That’s the heart of my music.”