The journal Musical America named Adolph Herseth its 1996 Instrumentalist of the Year. He is the first orchestral musician to have this honor. Herseth, was (in his own words) "solid as a rock" after a quadruple bypass operation began his 48th season as principal trumpeter of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. While he claimed that at age 74 he was only "80 percent" of what he was thirty years ago, no one is complaining. No one in the orchestra knows what they will do when he does retire, although a tour to Japan without him (during his operation) went off without a hitch. Born July 25, 1921. Studied math at Luther College before serving in World War II. Appointed 1st Trumpet of the CSO in 1948 by Arthur Rodzinski, who served only one year season as Music Director. First recording with the Chicago: "Pictures at an Exhibition", April 24, 1951, under Kubelik. Bud uses a Bach C trumpet exclusively. He uses an assortment of ten mouthpieces in any given performance, from his collection of over two hundred. He still owns the horn & mouthpiece he used in 1948. Bud was presented with a portion of the old Orchestra Hall stage floor in 1998 - signed by his fellow brass section colleagues, past and present. Another man named Bud Herseth once owned the San Francisco Giants - not the same person.

This page honors Adolph (Bud) Herseth, the musician regarded as classical music's greatest trumpeter. Bud was appointed Principal Trumpet of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1948, a position he has held for more than five decades. Bud is a virtuoso player and has attracted such phrases as "Dazzling!" and "Beautiful! The loveliest sound I've heard from a brass instrument!"

What's his secret? How has Bud remained so vigorous for so long, at such a demanding profession? In his own words: "You work your ass off!"

And indeed he has! Bud puts in three hours a day in his suburban Chicago basement, a regimen he's maintained for years. In his spare time-- any time at all away from the trumpet-- Bud plays golf, eats heartily, and coaches younger musicians in the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the training orchestra for the Chicago Symphony. Over the years, the Civic has become a well-known, well-oiled group in its own right, thanks in no small part to Bud's work. In this page, you'll find links, complete articles, reviews, and information on Mr. Herseth and his career.

Henry Fogel, general manager of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, writes:

``If you want a true indication of how special Bud Herseth is, take note of the following fact.  In the entire history of American symphony orchestras, the SECOND longest tenure for a principal trumpet player is 33 years (of any professional orchestra in the USA).  Bud is in his fiftieth season as principal trumpet of the Chicago Symphony - 17 years longer than the second longest tenure.  And we expect him to go right on as he begins his second fifty seasons next year!"

On the newswire:
 
"Being born and raised in the Chicago area, and being among a handful of students in my high school who listened to classical music, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to put my 2c worth in this thread.  Sir Georg was a larger-than-life figure to us, the "cult figure" we took seriously and revered (our other cult figures were picked for their idiosyncratic mannerisms).  Unfortunately, Sir Georg's associate, Mr. Mazer, suffered for this in our esteem.  When I was in high school, the CSO held afternoon concerts for area students at Symphony Hall.  Mazer always conducted them; the concerts were good (except for the time they performed Jupiter from the Planets, and Adolph Herseth - the principal trumpet - came in a measure early at the end, prompting us to coin the phrase, 'pull an Adolph Herseth'), but it  wasn't Sir Georg.

"Also, whenever the other students "backroaded" (hang out in an isolated area, drink beer, and turn the stereo to 11), they drank PBR's and listened to AC/DC; we drank Beck's and listened to CSO/Solti performing Mahler or Bruckner.  So his passing took another part of my youth with me.

"Welcome to your new home, Sir Georg ... and if you can communicate to me across the heavens, if you can spend but one second on this planet, if God allows you to take all the answers with you and you can only give one to me, please ... please, tell me ... WHERE CAN I GET A GOOD MONTE CRISTO SANDWICH AROUND HERE?!"

From: Antique Brass, Chicago, June 1998

"Trumpeter Adolph ``Bud" Herseth celebrates 50 years with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a concert on Jun 7"

By Sara Austin

CSO trumpeter Bud Herseth marks his half-century During an uncharacteristically quiet moment at a Chicago Symphony Orchestra rehearsal in the spring of 1997, former music director Georg Solti huddled in a comer with trumpeter Adolph "Bud" Herseth. Between them, the pair counted 79 years' experience at the CSO. "I said to him, These have just been golden years,"' recalls Herseth. "And Solti said, `Bud, same thing for me.' It turns out that was my last conversation with him." Solti died last September.

Idolized by fellow brass players, the 76-year-old Herseth has been conducted by most of the century's legendary names, including Igor Stravinsky and Fritz Reiner. On June 7th, Herseth will perform with the CSO in a concert celebrating his 50 seasons as principal trumpet.

Playing one of the most physically demanding orchestral instruments, Herseth draws admiration for his sound-clear, powerful, unwavering. The shock of white hair, the face radish red from exertion, the sweat pooling at his collar: Herseth in performance resembles Jack LaLanne in white tie and tails. Is the Oak Park resident flirting with retirement? Impishly, he says, "Another ten years, and I'm outta here."

Copyright Chicago Publishing, Inc. Jun 1998

From: The Wall Street Journal, New York, June 26, 1998

"A Fanfare for the Trumpeter"

By Sarah Bryan Miller

Chicago -- In our era of hype inflation, words like "legendary" and "icon" are routinely tossed out to describe the most minor of performers. But in the case of trumpeter Adolph Herseth, the words happen to fit.

Known to all as Bud, Mr. Herseth has a brilliant fortissimo that could knock down walls, a floating pianissimo that could break your heart, breath control to rival Birgit Nilsson in her prime, a gorgeous singing tone, the chops to play everything from baroque to Strauss to jazz, and a face that turns fire-engine red when he does. He's still playing, and playing well, at an age (he'll be 77 years old on July 25) when most brass players have long since laid down their horns, due to the wear and tear on their lips and lungs. He's still doing it for the same outfit that first hired him, 50 years later. Of course, when your first job is as principal trumpet of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, how can you hope for a promotion?

The CSO recently threw a party to celebrate Mr. Herseth's golden anniversary, with a concert called "Gabriel's Children" that featured dozens of brass players from around the world, along with a reception and dinner attended by friends and family. He could do without all the fuss. "I think it's a little overdone," said the unpretentious and occasionally somewhat crusty Mr. Herseth about BudFest. "I'm a little embarrassed by all the excess attention, but it gives me a very warm feeling."

Never one for ostentation, when he finds something that suits him, he sticks with it: the trumpet, the CSO and a fellow trumpeter he met in fourth grade, Avis Bottemiller, the only girl he ever dated and his wife for a half-century.

Reared in Bertha, Minn., Mr. Herseth attended Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, served in the Navy as a bandsman, and studied at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. At 26 he auditioned for the CSO's then-music director, Artur Rodzinski, and was hired instantly. Since then, there's been hardly a conductor of note for whom he hasn't worked or a symphonic composition with a trumpet part that he hasn't played; he expresses a strong preference for leaders -- like the late Pierre Monteux, his personal favorite -- who make their wishes clear, and music whose composers understand the instruments for which they're writing. He has never hankered for the spotlight, finding full and sufficient satisfaction in playing the first trumpet part in Strauss tone poems and Mahler symphonies.

The first orchestra player to be honored by the guide Musical America as "Instrumentalist of the Year," in 1996, he proffers no hypotheses to explain his amazing longevity, although the hours of rehearsal time he puts in every day in his basement studio -- "noodling," running scales or working on his parts for later concerts -- probably have something to do with it. His method, both for learning and teaching, is to go by example, without recourse to complicated theories, but he recommends that aspiring trumpeters listen to singers. "The human voice is the world's original and finest musical instrument," he observed, "and the trumpet is like an extension of it."

Mr. Herseth's current boss, CSO music director Daniel Barenboim, noted: "Bud has a sort of musical authority. He is wonderful to work with because he is one of those very rare people who really aches when he is unable to get what he wants" musically.

"Bud is a wonderfully generous colleague to younger players," said Henry Fogel, executive director of the Orchestral Association. "His fans come to our concerts, here and on tour, and he always spends time with them -- and sometimes he even takes them out to dinner." Mr. Herseth is devoted to the young players of the Civic Orchestra, the CSO's training ensemble, and is unstinting in coaching them.

On June 7, Orchestra Hall was sold out, the auditorium bristling with brass players from around the Midwest and beyond. Fujio Ozawa, a former student of Mr. Herseth's now living in Germany, came to Chicago with his wife, just to attend the concert. "He doesn't teach the typical things," said Mr. Ozawa, a native of Japan. "I made my best performances with him, because he made me look at the music in a different way." Added another former student, participant Matthew Comerford, "He transcends playing the trumpet. His whole being is focused on making music."

"Gabriel's Children" was sponsored by AT&T; all performers donated their services (and paid their own way, even those coming from around the country, Europe and Japan), so that all the proceeds would benefit the Civic Orchestra.

When Mr. Herseth walked onstage, a portly, white-haired figure, and stood with his hands behind his back, the audience erupted into the first of five standing ovations. The concert alternated between Budless readings of brass choir works -- which allowed the fabled CSO brass section to thunder without strings or woodwinds to get in the way -- and works featuring the honoree as soloist, including a fine rendition of Haydn's Trumpet Concerto in E-flat Major and an arrangement of "Side by Side" that added Doc Severinsen, in a Las Vegas-style half-sequined dinner jacket.

Mr. Herseth wanted something from the standard orchestral repertoire on the program, and Maestro Barenboim's choice was Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto, with himself as piano soloist. This proved a musical non sequitur for a concert dedicated to a brass player, since the trumpet part is minuscule. It would have been more appropriate to have scheduled something like Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition," with the solo trumpet lines that Mr. Herseth does so well.

But the finale was grand: a brass choir made up of the brass sections of the CSO and the Civic Orchestra and 29 distinguished visitors playing several Gabrieli canzoni from Renaissance Venice, as they had never been heard before. And at the concert's very end, Bud Herseth finally got that promotion: Taking the baton, he ascended to the podium and conducted his colleagues with a clear, precise beat.

Copyright Dow Jones & Company Inc. Jun 26, 1998

From: Smithsonian, Vol. 5, No. 6, September 1994: 94-10

"For All Who Crave a Horn That Thrills, This Bud’s for You"

By Jim Doherty

Bud Herseth and I are in the basement of his two-story stucco house in Oak Park, Illinois, the town where Ernest Hemingway grew up and Frank Lloyd Wright got started in the architecture business. It s a basement pretty much like any other—low ceiling, bare light bulbs, concrete-block walls. Two things stand out.

In the back, where you might expect to find a workbench or a table saw, there is a makeshift music studio. Here the ceiling is covered with acoustical tiles, and several rugs are thrown across the floor. Some 50 horns of various configurations are scattered about, together with a couple of hundred mouthpieces, several plastic bottles of valve oil and reams of sheet music. A chair, occupied by Bud, faces a music stand.

The second thing is the noise. Bud plays the trumpet for a living, and this is where he practices. When I phoned earlier to ask if I could sit in on a session, he invited me to come right over. After ushering me downstairs, he gave a brief lesson in the history of the trumpet, illustrating it with examples from his collection, including a straight, valveless bugle of the type once used for battle signals and ceremonial fanfares. Now, having run through a brisk routine of warm-up exercises, he is rehearsing a number for an upcoming concert.

It is a hellishly difficult piece. His face is as scarlet as a radish from the exertion, but he plays without a hint of strain. Some trumpeters make you nervous. They seem to be silently pleading, "Please, chops, don't fail me now." Not Bud. With him it is simply a matter of "Just do it!" He is sitting with his feet planted firmly on the floor, his back ramrod straight, his ample gut protruding over his belt. He glares with unblinking eyes at the music on the stand. Falter? Fracture a high note? Blow some air? Forget it. Isn't even a possibility.

As for the racket he is making, words like "celestial" and "stupendous" come to mind. At times Bud fuses the robust pealing of his instrument into a core of sound so focused, so dense, I can t help but wonder if he's about to undertake a feat of alchemy, somehow transforming what is, after all, mere pulsations of air into a palpable substance—a torrent of silver, perhaps, that fills every inch of the room, encapsulating us in music like a couple of insects drowned in amber. Talk about power. If the man could generate electricity with that thing, he'd light up half the state.

The soloist pauses, hums several bars, sucks in a breath and forges ahead. When he has finished, he pushes his spectacles up on the bridge of his nose and grins. "Marvelous tune! Lovely tune! Knocks me out every time I hear it. Sensational! Fabulous!"

That's Bud-speak for "I like it." It s a good thing, too, because he's going to be playing it a lot in the weeks ahead. Typically he puts in three basement sessions a day, practicing 40 or 50 minutes at a crack. But this is a down-to-earth guy in more ways than one. He's been married to the same woman for 51 years, has three grown children and five grandchildren. He enjoys fishing, playing golf and rooting for the Chicago Bears. He has a fondness for good food and drink. He once described himself to me, in the course of a long, bibulous dinner at his favorite Spanish restaurant, as "a bit of a smartass."

Bud counts among his friends and the musicians he admires most a disparate group of trumpeters that includes Maynard Ferguson, Doc Severinsen and the late jazz artist Dizzy Gillespie, who was famous for his upthrust horn and bulging cheeks. Gillespie, a black man, once kidded him: "Bud, how come your cheeks don't puff up when you play?" Bud replied: "Diz, how come your face doesn't get red when you play?" Bud himself is not a member of a jazz band. This fall he will begin his 47th season as the principal trumpet player with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

The Chicago has long been recognized as one of the world's great orchestras, and Adolph Sylvester Herseth has had a major role in the evolution of its distinctive sound. The trumpet is the most strenuous of all instruments, and the most conspicuous. The trumpet section is a symphony orchestra's offensive line. It provides the muscle for those clamorous big moments in Bruckner, Beethoven and Strauss. It is also called upon to punctuate, embellish and support. A good trumpet section is steady, confident, aggressive. The Chicago's is not good, it is spectacular, and Herseth, its leader, is the main reason.

Although he is not well known to the general public, to the cognoscenti of symphonic music the world over Bud is the premier orchestral trumpeter of his time, and perhaps of all time. Fellow musicians hail him as "a legend," "a phenomenon" and "the prototype." Critics knock themselves out singing his praise. He is a hero to brass students at music schools. Wherever the Chicago goes on tour, young players mob him.

It s unusual for an orchestral musician to receive such adulation, but Bud is special. To do what he does on the concert stage, finishing off grace notes with extraordinary finesse, handling bravura solos and lyrical melodies with equal aplomb, consistently setting a virtuoso standard that inspires his colleagues—to do the big things and the little things superbly night after night, week after week—takes the concentration of a surgeon, the panache of a showman and the nerves of a fighter pilot.

Bud is more than a great instrumentalist. He s a walking history book. He has played under Bruno Walter, who was a close personal friend and associate of the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler; Fritz Reiner, who knew Richard Strauss; Pierre Monteux, who knew Stravinsky; and even Stravinsky himself.

Just as Bud knows conductors—Leopold Stokowski, George Szell, Eugene Ormandy, Erich Leinsdorf and Leonard Bernstein top a short list of other celebrated maestros who have taken guest turns in Chicago—conductors know Bud. "Some musicians of great stature become, in effect, the artistic consciences of their orchestras, Daniel Barenboim, the Chicago's current music director, told me not long ago. "Bud Herseth has been the artistic conscience of this orchestra for many years.

Playing the horn professionally was the furthest thing from Bud s mind when he was growing up in Bertha, Minnesota (pop. 500). His parents, both music-loving Norwegians, expected each of their four children to lake up an instrument. Bud was given a trumpet when was 7. Since his father was the school superintendent, It was assumed that Bud would play at community functions as well as in the school band; he got over the trauma of performing in public at an early age.

He met his future wife, Avis Bottemiller, in fourth grade. She, too, played the trumpet, though not with quite the same devotion. Sitting out on the front porch of her house, Avis could hear Bud practicing at his house. When he stopped, she knew he was probably on his way over to see her.

Bud attended Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, his father s alma mater. (Bud's class ring, dated 1910, is actually his dad s.) He majored in math and planned on going into actuarial work, but World War II intervened and he ended up playing in a Navy band. When he got out of the service, he went to the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston on the G.I. Bill.

A couple of years later, he auditioned for what he assumed was a low-level position with the Chicago. The conductor at that time, the flamboyant Arthur Rodzinski, was so impressed that he announced: "Well, you are the new first trumpet." Bud was stunned. He was 26, fresh out of the conservatory and barely knew the repertoire. "I guess I'd better go home and practice," he said.

One of his first numbers with the Chicago was Richard Strauss "Ein Heldenleiben." The guest conductor was Fritz Reiner who, after listening to the new man at rehearsal, asked someone in the brass section, "Where did you find that jewel?" When Howard Barlow, another formidable maestro, heard Bud for the first time he inquired, "Where did you learn to play like that, New York?" "Nah," Bud replied. "Bertha."

It s a strange world Bud got himself into. Consider, for example, what happens at the beginning of every concert. One moment you see a hundred or so formally attired men and women up on stage sawing, plucking, blowing and otherwise tormenting their instruments like so many crazed penguins. The next moment another penguin comes rushing in from the wings, points a stick and suddenly chaos becomes music.

Think about it—rubbing taut strings with horsehair, vibrating lips on coiled lengths of tubing, whacking animal skins with mallets, and so on, all to produce sounds in accordance with instructions written down by individuals who for the most part have long since departed Earth. It s ridiculous. As a lover of symphonic music, I ve often wondered what it takes in the way of preparation to get from the ridiculous to the sublime, and so I made arrangements recently to sit on the wide, shallow stage of Orchestra Hall with Bud and the Chicago's 109 other musicians during a rehearsal.

I am surrounded by violins. Bud and his three trumpet cohorts are sitting in the middle of the back row, behind me and to my left. The noise of the musicians warming up is too hideous. It is hot out here under the lights. The rest of the hall is dark, except for the clusters of tiny illuminations that decorate the box seats.

Barenboim, a stocky figure with a familiar, heavy-lidded look, ascends the podium. He is wearing a long-sleeved white dress shirt, unbuttoned at the throat. The onetime prodigy's face is still youthful, but his short hair is graying now, and thinning. The first order of business today is Five Pieces for Orchestra (Op. 16), a series of intricate poems by the apostle of atonal music, Arnold Schoenberg. Barenboim hurriedly pages through the score, stopping frequently to critique the previous day s rehearsal. He asks the clarinets for more crescendo at a certain place. He asks the oboes for a different sound somewhere else. "May I just say this once more?" Now he is addressing the entire orchestra. He seems almost excessively polite, and the musicians, in turn, give him their full attention. "It is a question of the thinness of the sound," he says, raising his baton.

When conducting, Barenboim does not hack and slice the air like his dynamic predecessor, Georg Solti. (It was said that Solti seldom finished a rehearsal without exposing his navel.) His hands move gracefully, unobtrusively; his head tilts to one side with his mouth half open, his eyes half closed. He seems far more intent on listening than leading. When the flutes chirp brightly, he flashes them a warm, appreciative smile.

Suddenly Barenboim interrupts. ‘Excuse me, clarinets, but I don t think you understand this line . . . violins, maybe here you can give me just a little more sound." The rehearsal moves along in fits and starts. At one point, Barenboim abruptly drops his arms and gapes at a violinist in the front row. "You re playing sixteenths!" he exclaims. "Should be thirty-seconds." A woman sitting near me sighs and mutters, "Oh, come on, Daniel."

During a break, Bud and several others relax in a corner of the players lounge and compare Barenboim and Solti as rehearsal conductors. Nearby, four men are involved in a bridge game. Several women are browsing the notices on a bulletin board. "Solti was efficient," Buds saying. "He knew what was possible. Danny is not yet reconciled to the fact that not everything is possible. He's very fussy, but he doesn't try to be as Olympian as Solti. He ll kid around and joke with you."

When Bud arrived in Chicago, the orchestra still had both feet planted firmly in the 19th century. Over the first 50 years of its existence, it had been led by only two men, both German by birth, and it was steeped in the Germanic musical tradition. That meant ample servings of~‘ns, Beethoven, Haydn and Mozart, and a strong reliance on players with an Old World background.

Many of Bud's new colleagues were aging masters who had immigrated to this country years earlier. Some were so set in their ways that they still affected the black rehearsal jackets customarily worn by musicians in Europe. For them, music was not a job, it was a calling.

Although it was a good orchestra in those days, the Chicago had not yet achieved the stature of the Philadelphia, the Cleveland or the New York Philharmonic. It was said that it was capable of playing great concerts but seldom did. Then the board of trustees hired Fritz Reiner, one of the symphonic world's last grand autocrats.

The Hungarian-born conductor's sinister reputation was more appropriate to a movie monster than a maestro. But Reiner was also renowned for his vast repertoire, extraordinary ear and meticulous preparation. He built outstanding orchestras in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh by firing people. In Chicago, he discovered that he could work with the considerable talent he had inherited. First, though, came a period of relentless testing.

When an individual had an important part coming up, Reiner would toy with him mercilessly to make sure he was ready. One day he made Bud go over the same demanding passage a dozen times, and then asked him how many more he could manage. Bud looked at his watch. "I ve got till 12:30," he said.

Reiner insisted on perfection. Whether the music was an old war-horse or a contemporary work by Stravinsky, Hindemith or his friend Bela Bartok, he was ruthless about balance and intonation. "It is not clean!" he harangued the players. "It must be clean!"

In due course, with its majestic strings buoyed by the sensational outpourings of a rejuvenated brass section, America's best unknown orchestra finally began to make a name for itself. The glorious Reiner era was succeeded, after an interregnum of several years, by the equally exciting reign of Reiner's fellow countryman Georg Solti. Intense, antsy, decisive, Solti was an irresistible force. He had the ideas and the drive to create a mystique about the Chicago, a mystique that convinced audiences around the world that it was one of the most exciting ensembles ever to take the concert stage.

Like any successful conductor, Solti knew the music and had strong ideas about how it should be presented. What set him apart from many of his peers was his willingness to compromise with musicians who had their own ideas. If, for example, he heard Bud do something he didn t like at rehearsal, he made the correction. "No, no, my dear—not da-da-de. I want biddy-biddy-boo." Next time, though, if Bud still played da-da-de, typically Solti would relent. "That s fine, my dear. Do it that way."

An unabashed romantic, Solti embraced the hearty Teutonic fare that had dominated the Chicago's menu from the beginning, but he also served up entrees of Wagner and the post-romantics Mahler and Bruckner. Indeed, Mahler s Fifth Symphony, with its emphasis on tremendous performances from the brass, eventually became identified as the Chicago's signature work; audiences expected to hear it. At a reception one evening after the umpteenth performance, Bud went up to Solti and said, "Maestro, I felt there was something special about the way we played it tonight." Solti glared at him and hissed: "My God, Bud, I can t stand it anymore!"

The "band," as Bud calls the Chicago, was sometimes referred to during Solti's tenure as "the perfect orchestra" because each section was so strong. Knockout performers like Dale Clevenger on the French horn, oboist Ray Still and Arnold Jacobs on the tuba could blow people away. They were willing to submerge their big personalities, however, to achieve the wondrously cohesive effect that became known as "The Chicago Sound."

Every great orchestra generates a distinctive sound. The Chicago's, as it has evolved from Reiner to Solti to Barenboim, is characteristically full-bodied and powerful, and no one has contributed more to it than Bud. "You can t overestimate the pressure of being the principal trumpet in an orchestra like that," says Charlie Geyer, a teacher at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, who played alongside Bud for 12 years. "You must always he outstanding." What makes Bud outstanding? "Consistency," Geyer says. "Love of the music. A definite style—beautiful phrasing. Technically clear. A tremendous leader. In his playing, Bud literally demands that people follow him."

Not, mind you, that the man is perfect. There was the time, for example, when he removed a valve to lubricate it during a performance. The conductor signaled for him to play, but there was no sound. He put the valve in backward. He fixed it and started over. Again, no sound. He had "fixed" the wrong valve.

Like most orchestral musicians, Bud is not awed by conductors, but he gets away with tweaking the lion's tail in ways other players would not dare. "Hey, Maestro!" he once razzed Solti at a post-concert reception. "Anytime you think I'm not following you, how about you following me for a while?" Another time, feigning great seriousness, he asked Solti: "Do you know what s the hardest part of your job?" "What s that, Bud?" Solti replied, genuinely puzzled. "Getting it," Bud said.

In his cramped quarters at Orchestra Hall, Barenboim recently told me how he turned the tables on Bud one night. During a rehearsal of Brahms Fourth Symphony, he asked Bud to play a particular note an octave higher than it was indicated in the score. "No way, Maestro," Bud said. "This performance is being recorded, and I m not going down in history as the man who did that." When it came time during the concert, Barenboim looked expectantly at Bud, who shook his head no. Afterward Barenboim called Bud into his dressing room and delivered a long, fancy speech about how much he had enjoyed working with him over the years. "But tonight you disappointed me," he concluded, whipping out a rubber chicken and presenting it with a flourish. "Tonight you chickened out.

Joking aside, Barenboim's story illustrates an essential aspect of Bud's personality. He is tough. Early in his career, a car accident cost him a half-dozen front teeth and split his lower lip so badly 13 stitches were needed to close it. A mere mortal might have feared the end of his playing days. Bud had his mouth rebuilt and six weeks later resumed his seat. His lip was numb and his mouthpiece felt funny, yet somehow he produced the same gorgeous sound. He can t explain it.

That pretty much sums up Bud's whole approach. He refuses to make a big deal about "technique." Playing less to do with the mouth than the ear, he says. "You have to start with a very precise sense of how something should sound. Then, instinctively, you modify your lip and your breathing and the pressure of the horn to obtain that sound.

"A lot of potentially good horn players have been screwed up by teachers who insist that the only way to play is the way they play. That s a crock. Each person has to do it his or her way. There s no secret about how you learn to make a good sound. You work your butt off."

To succeeding generations of Chicago players and symphony goers, Bud has become the personification of the same iron discipline those old men in their black jackets once represented for him. "You have to have the discipline," he says. "If you don't come with discipline in your soul, somebody's going to put it there." Translated, that means practice, practice, practice.

Bud's routine has varied little since he and Avis moved into their house on South Clarence Street in 1949. On a concert day, the orchestra typically schedules a 2 hour morning rehearsal; the concert itself may run 2 hours or more. On a non-concert day, there may be two rehearsals, one in the morning, one after lunch. Bud usually catches the 9 o'clock train a few blocks from the house for the ten-mile ride into the city. He warms up for 15 or 20 minutes before leaving and again before rehearsal starts. On "free" days, he puts in his three sessions downstairs.

The work week is seven days long for Bud. He seldom skips practice on weekends and holidays and doesn't go anywhere without taking a horn or mouthpiece. It s not the amount of time he puts in that's so draining; it's the intensity, the physical stress and the pressure. The concert season extends from mid-September to Christmas. After a two-week break, it continues until the end of May. The orchestra plays an eight-week summer season at Ravinia, an outdoor performing arts center in the suburbs north of Chicago. There usually is an extended foreign tour in the spring or fall, as well.

For all this the musicians are well paid. The union starting salary exceeds $70,000. Most players make more than $100,000; Bud probably earns at least half again as much. But the money, he insists, is not what keeps him going. It is (and you can envision the boy from Bertha when he says this) the simple thrill of being there. "I get to play with all these great colleagues, to play the world s greatest music under the world s greatest conductors and with the world s greatest soloists, and I ve been able to do this for, what, 46 years? Somebody s kidding me!"

If Bud can look back on many good times with the Chicago, some were better than others. The verdict is not yet in on Barenboim. Bud is fond of him, but not everyone is enthusiastic. A brilliant pianist, Barenboim enjoyed a long relationship with the Chicago as a soloist and guest conductor before taking over from Solti three years ago. Since then, he has received the kind of tough scrutiny that befalls anyone who succeeds a legend.

Critics inside and outside the orchestra have grumbled that the Chicago is losing its edge, that it is inconsistent, that Barenboim has yet, in that overworked phrase, to put his own imprimatur on the ensemble s work. There are others, however, who believe the engaging maestro has lately begun to do just that. Barenboim's supporters say he is more subtle and sophisticated than Solti, more attuned to nuance and less concerned about showy effects.

More is at stake than purely artistic considerations. The Chicago, like any major symphony orchestra, is a nonprofit operation. Since subscriptions and ticket sales cover only about 40 percent of its $36 million annual budget, the orchestra must raise the rest. Other challenges, not just for the Chicago but for ensembles all over the country, center on the nagging question of cultural elitism—the need to broaden the symphony's narrow (and aging) constituency and reinvigorate the traditional repertoire.

Such cosmic considerations are the furthest thing from Bud s mind on this splendid afternoon at Ravinia. Amid a flotilla of picnic tables, he is the center of attention at a noisy gathering of relatives and friends. The tables are heaped with comestibles, the wine and beer are flowing—but not for Bud. This evening the guest of honor will stand before his beloved orchestra and negotiate the difficult terrain of Haydn's Trumpet Concerto, the "tune" he has been practicing in his basement lo these many weeks.

Avis, an energetic and vivacious woman, seems to be everywhere at once. Bud, resplendent in vivid green trousers and a yellow shirt, is more stationary. He responds to the affectionate teasing of his grandchildren with gruff good humor but nevertheless seems preoccupied. "He never acts like he s got anything down pat, no matter how often he's played it," his daughter Chris tells me. "He doesn't get nervous, exactly, but for as long as I can remember he's sort of tuned out the rest of us when he s had a hard concert coming up. He s thinking."

Bud's greatest worry nowadays, Avis says, is that he will stay on too long. "We've known some musicians who didn't realize when it was time to quit, and it was sad." We are watching a solitary figure in green and yellow trudge across the sun-drenched meadow toward the pavilion. Bud left abruptly, without making farewells. "He needs time by himself to get ready," Avis explains.

A couple of hours later, wearing a tuxedo and a smile, Bud walks on stage before a nearly full house in the pavilion and proceeds to play the Haydn concerto. He does not just play it well. He plays it beautifully and, in the melodious slow movement, the lilting andante, he plays it with deep emotion. When he has finished, his fellow musicians applaud, and the audience, cheering, rises. He pushes his spectacles up on the bridge of his nose and grins. Yeah Bud. Sensational, Fabulous!

Copyright Smithsonian, September 1994.

Links (these may work, or not)

• Information on Bud's 50th Season Chicago Symphony Tribute: *

  Chicago Tribune | Brian Frederiksen | Ryan MacGavin

  * for reasons unknown, the press release has been removed from the CSO news page.

• OJ's Trumpet Page - Information on Mr. Herseth's methods, routines, etc.

• Chicago CenterStage | Music Academy of the West | Another page | Herseth page from my old site | V-Zone | "Reviews from the Street"

• WindSong Press - Information on Arnold Jacobs (Legendary CSO tuba player 1944-1988)

• Chicago Symphony Orchestra Roster (at the CSO Website)

On June 4, 1998, I mailed this letter to the Tuba-Euphonium Listserve:

Dear listers,

On June 7, the Chicago Symphony will host a concert honoring Adolph "Bud" Herseth for his 50 years as Principal Trumpet of that orchestra.

Last year, I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Herseth at Symphony Center in Chicago. I've never met someone with as much charisma, artistry, or legend as this man. His music is impeccable: no other trumpeter can play as cleanly or articulate as lightly as Herseth does.

During the concert, he walked out (five minutes late) and gingerly sat down beside the other brass players. He pulled out a gig bag and produced FOUR horns, and placed each one strategically around his chair (on the floor, standing each on its bell... no stands). He only played for one song but he used every one of those horns; he had some kind of formula worked out and knew just which one to use when, and where.

During long rests, he would take out his mouthpiece and buzz, imperceptibly, until just the right moment... then he'd grab a trumpet, play five measures (perfectly, he made NO mistakes), and wait out again. I don't think I ever saw him count or tap his foot. My friends and I figured that, after all these years, he must know every measure in every song by heart--after half a century, who wouldn't?

After the concert, my two friends and I (both trumpet players) ran down to the dressing rooms, where we waited like groupies for Herseth to walk out. Security people (who were almost TOO helpful) told us that Herseth normally "disappeared" through a side exit where no one could find him---something he had learned from Solti, years before.

As we talked, a short figure walked by, dressed in a hunting jacket, with a paper and umbrella tucked under his arm. The security guard stopped him and pointed us out, and he came over---it was Bud Herseth! He shook hands with my friends but stopped when he got to me: "You don't look like a trumpet player!" Nervously, I told him I played the tuba, and he stuck out his hand and said, in a gravelly voice, "Tuba player, eh? Yer a brasshole! Well, I'll talk to anybody!"

He talked to us for a good ten minutes about Chicago, Solti, and William Scarlett, a retired CSO trumpeter who had helped us get tickets that night. Herseth was friendly and full of advice about how to make it in the music world ("Practice, practice, practice"). We got a picture with him, and then he disappeared into the crowd of other musicians and Orchestra Hall employees.

That night was wonderful. I admire Herseth not only for his virtuoso playing (even today) but for his humor and warmth. The greatest trumpet player in the world showed no ego, no contempt, only joy for being where he was, and at such an age. Even so, he had the eyes of a child---they lit up as he played. Herseth loves music, and that sheer enthusiasm is rare among musicians. It's the secret of how he's lasted so long and, given the same inspiration, how it can happen to any of us, too.

Here's the story that originally appeared with this page:

October 14, 1997

A short time ago, two friends and I journeyed by moonlight to Chicago, Illinois. We were pretty worn out by the time we got there, but we managed to get around & have fun. On a Friday night, we went to the historic Orchestra Hall and saw the Chicago Symphony perform a chamber concert that ended in the avante-guard Pulchinella suite by Stravinski. Shortly before the program began, we learned from an usher that only the strings were to perform and we were crushed. Being brass players, we had come hoping to meet Bud Herseth and some of the great musicians of the brass section.

We sat through the first three pieces of the concert waiting for the whole thing to end. There would be a large crowd as left and it would be a long walk out to where we parked. The second to last song ended, there was blind applause, bowing, and hollering. The conductor left the stage, and the musicians looked bored. All the sudden, something hit me: I noticed a few chairs set up in the back row onstage, and that they had remained empty through the whole show. Moments later, the maestro returned and some new people began walking out. First Dale Clevenger, the principal horn, then Jay Friedman, the principal trombone. But a chair was still empty.

And then a hunched figure, dressed lopsidedly in an ancient tux and crooked bow-tie ambled out, dragging a gig bag behind him. I was stunned. It took me a few moments to figure out this man must be Bud, the greatest legit trumpet player in history. Peter, Andy, and I couldn't believe it... Adolph Herseth was there! During Pulchinella, he sounded amazing, just as good as he did back in the days of Fritz Reiner. After the concert, we made our way downstairs to the dressing rooms. We met Bud, shook hands, got pictures, got autographs.

It was very nearly a dream come true. The style, the legend, the kindness of this musician had an effect on us... That we will never be the same again is an understatement.

Send in more "Bud" anecdotes!

Created October 14, 1997. Version 5.1 created January 1, 2000.

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