A TRUMPETER IN SEARCH OF HIS MUSIC

On stage with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Thomas Stevens is just a face in the crowd. So, the rare opportunity to move into the spotlight as a soloist should cause the orchestra’s principal trumpeter to jump for joy.

But it doesn’t.

Stage fright? Modesty? Hardly. Stevens is depressed because the trumpet’s concerto repertory is woefully inadequate.

“I realize that principals have to go out front now and then,” he says with a shrug. “And that’s fine with me--if you have the tunes to play.” Whereupon Stevens quickly ticks off--and unceremoniously dismisses--the pitifully few choices:

“There’s the Haydn (the much-played E-flat Concerto). Now, it’s a good piece, so there’s a musical reason for playing it. But really, it was a total joke for him. The concerto was his last instrumental composition, and he spent much of the time just experimenting around with the trumpet’s lower register.”

Hummel’s E-flat Concerto? Stevens mutters a brief, unkind--and unprintable--description of that chestnut.

Finally, the trumpeter gets around to Telemann’s D-major Concerto, the piece he agreed to play at concerts by the Philharmonic at the Music Center this week, beginning on Wednesday. “It’s not bad,” he says of the concerto. “It has its moments. The first movement is a nightmare for the soloist. But, for heaven’s sake, I’ll be playing it on a program (beginning Thursday) that includes the Mahler Fourth!”

Stevens insists he is not being curmudgeonly about his instrument’s repertory: “I just love to play things that have meaning.” Such as? He allows a slight smile. “I would rather be with the modern music crowd.”

Indeed, the 20-year Philharmonic veteran has been a constant supporter of the contemporary music scene. He has been soloist in premieres of works by Hans Werner Henze, Henri Lazarof, Iain Hamilton and William Kraft, among others.

At a Philharmonic-sponsored concert of music by Luciano Berio in November, 1984, Stevens played the premiere of a “Sequenza” (one of a continuing series of solo works for various instruments), written expressly for him.

He admits that the general public will probably always link the bright sound of the trumpet with the glories of the Baroque.

“It’s a gold mine for the trumpeter, though most of it isn’t that good,” he says of music from that period, pointing to an endless number of recordings by such household-name players as Maurice Andre.

Trumpet repertory, Stevens theorizes, simply dried up at the end of the 18th Century with the increasing popularity of the clarinet. “The 19th Century? Zip. But the worst part is that we’ve lost the 20th Century.”

Despite Stevens’ campaigning on behalf of the trumpet, few recent composers (beyond those mentioned) have shown interest in writing for the instrument. Typically, he eschews tact in his explanation: “In this century, there have been few triple-digit-IQ players.”

So great is the hunger for new material among solo trumpeters, Stevens says, that any discovery--or even a hint of one--is met with huzzahs. “Someone once mistranslated a Mozart letter, and concluded that Mozart had written a trumpet concerto. And the search for the missing manuscript was on!”

How far will a trumpeter go for new material? With a smile, Stevens admits knowledge of a fraud-in-the-works, involving a newly written concerto in the style of the Baroque. “Within nine months, the announcement of this ‘discovery’ will be made,” he predicts, while refusing to name either the culprits or the credited composer.

Isn’t there concern that such a charade would be uncovered? “Look how long it took the political science experts to dismiss those Hitler Diaries,” Stevens responds. “And here, we’re only dealing with a bunch of trumpeters.”