Tombeau de Couperin
Our wedding, in the company of a hundred friends, took place on a summer Saturday morning in a State Park outside Cedar Rapids, Iowa. We were married on a bluff above the river. We had hired a professional trumpet player (University of Iowa music professor) and a young oboe player (my wife's brother, now, 23 years later, an oboist with the Pittsburgh Symphony). Scott Bell, our oboist, played from the "Tombeau de Couperin" during the ceremony. During the oboe solo, a ruby-throated hummingbird flew down to us and circled my future wife and myself, an Aztec sign of favor. After being pronounced married (by a woman Unitarian minister in a muu-muu), the trumpeter, John Beer, played the "Victory March" from Verdi's Aida. His piercing notes echoed up and down the river valley. After John had finished and the sound of his trumpet faded, the wedding guests sat still in their seats a few seconds before they cheered our marriage. It was the most unusual and beautiful 20-minute concert/theater we could have hoped for. In fact, what happened that morning could not have been planned. The music and the hummingbird must have worked their miracles: after 23 years we're still happily together! Jim Hulbert |
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