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It’s time for the Seattle Chamber Music Festival! We have a concert scheduled for Wednesday, July 3. Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, you can hear the concerts live at the website of KING-FM. I’ll be providing programs and links to the concerts throughout the summer festival. As we approach each concert, I’ll introduce one piece per evening at the Canteen with commentary about the piece. On concert nights, I’ll introduce the musicians.

Andre Jolivet (1905-1974) wobbled back and forth between the tonal and atonal. In his professional life he was Music Director of the Comedie Francais, which paid the bills.

This is a piece for trumpet and percussion section in seven movements, written in 1970. I’m not going to pretend that I understand it or even like it. But I’m open to new music, and I can say that this piece does not commit the cardinal sin of music, which is to be boring. Jolivet is too good a composer to be boring. This piece gets the heart pumping and th bile flowing. It’s infuriating, but not boring.

Jolivet: Heptade