Author: Douglas Yeo

100 years ago today: Edward Marck Kleinhammer (1919-2013)

100 years ago today—on August 31, 1919—Edward Marck Kleinhammer was born (that is not a typo, his middle name was spelled Marck). He had a long and especially distinguished career as bass trombonist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1940-1985. His influence on bass trombone performance and pedagogy is incalculable, even today, years after his death in 2013.

This was a man who changed my life. He was my trombone teacher during my years as an undergraduate at Wheaton College, Illinois (1974-1976). In the years that followed, the teacher/student relationship changed into a deep, abiding friendship, and I count myself very blessed that God brought our lives together. The story of his accomplishments and his influence on me and so many others is something I told in two articles I wrote about him for the International Trombone Association Journal. On both occasions, his photo graced the cover of the Journal. I wrote the first on the occasion of his retirement from the Chicago Symphony, in 1985. You can read it by clicking HERE.

I wrote the second in 2014, shortly after his death. You can read it by clicking HERE.

The photo on both of these International Trombone Association Journal covers dates from 1976, and first appeared in a book published by the Chicago Symphony in that year, Reflections: A collection of personality sketches of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Both of my articles are personal tributes to a great man and contain much information about his life, work, and influence. Today, on what would have been his 100th birthday, I don’t need to say many more words about Mr. Kleinhammer. He was a superb bass trombonist, a caring, challenging, effective, and tremendously inspiring teacher, and one who loved God and lived his life with the Bible as his guide. But a picture, it has been said, tells a thousand words. Here are some photos of him that tell more of his story. Many have never been published before. Several were given to me by Ed Kleinhammer himself; others were given to me by his widow, Dessie, after his death, and still others come from my own collection. Edward Kleinhammer: a life well lived, and a life remembered by all who knew and were influenced by him. Captions are above each photo.

[Below] Ed Kleinhammer played trombone in Leopold Stokowski’s All-American Youth Orchestra in 1940, during the summer before he joined the Chicago Symphony. This photo shows the orchestra on stage at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City before their tour of South America:

[Below] This is a closeup of the low brass section of the orchestra, cropped from the above photo. From the left (front) are Dorothy Zeigler, Charles Gusikoff (who was principal trombonist of the Philadelphia Orchestra at the time—Stokowski engaged several members of the PO to play alongside the younger players in the orchestra), Edward Kleinhammer, Howard Cole, and Philip Silverman, tuba:

[Below] Edward Kleinhammer and an unidentified All-American Youth Orchestra member outside the Atlantic City Boardwalk Hall, 1940:

[Below] After I joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1985, Edward Kleinhammer sent me his copy of the Method for trombone by Carl Hampe, who had been principal trombonist with the BSO in the early 20th century. It was one of his earliest trombone study books but it was one he turned to even after he joined the Chicago Symphony. When I opened it, I found many of his markings inside including those on these two pages. This one has an aphorism that he penned in 1947, and is a good reminder of how discipline and “slow and steady wins the race” were themes of his life:

[Below] This page, below, made me smile. Evidently, Leopold Stokowski had asked Mr. Kleinhammer to demonstrate his range on the trombone. His note to himself speaks for itself:

[Below] Here is the Chicago Symphony, October 8, 1940. This is a scan of half of a photo of the orchestra; I only have this scan of this portion of the photo which was given to me by Edward Kleinhammer.

[Below] Here is the low brass section of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, fall 1940, cropped from the larger photo shown above of the CSO with Frederick Stock, conductor, at the beginning of Edward Kleinhammer’s tenure in the orchestra. Left to right: George Washington Hamburg, tuba; Edward Kleinhammer, bass trombone; David Anderson, second trombone; Frank Crisafulli, principal trombone; Edward Geffert, assistant principal trombone.

[Below] From 1942—1945, Edward Kleinhammer was in a U.S. Army band, stationed at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. In this photo, he is in the top row, second from the right, next to a Sousaphone player:

[Below] Ed Kleinhammer in uniform, c. 1944:

[Below] The caption on the back of this photo is in Edward Kleinhammer’s handwriting and reads, “Stage Band, Independence, Kansas. Early 1940s.” He drew a small “X” on the photo to show where he was sitting in the back row of the Army band:

[Below] The caption on the back of this photo, reads (in his wife, Dorothy’s handwriting), “Ed is practicing near our cabin.” In his handwriting, it reads, “Calling ‘Moose'” (Moose was Ed Kleinhammer’s nickname in the CSO). The photo looks to date from the late 1950s.

[Below] This photo is from the Ravinia Festival, taken around 1960. From left to right: Rudolph “Rudy” Nashan, trumpet; Adolph “Bud” Herseth, principal trumpet; Robert Lambert, principal trombone, Frank Crisafulli, second trombone; Edward Kleinhammer, bass trombone; Arnold Jacobs, tuba.

[Below] This is a Chicago Symphony Orchestra brass quartet, around 1970. David Babcock, horn; Charles Geyer, trumpet; Edward Kleinhammer, bass trombone (playing his single valve Bach 50-B bass trombone); James Gilbertson, tenor trombone.

[Below] The caption on the back of this photo, in Edward Kleinhammer’s handwriting, reads, “Trombone Section CSO Circa 1970.” Back to camera: Edward Kleinhammer, Frank Crisafulli; facing camera, James Gilbertson, Jay Friedman.

[Below] Chicago Symphony brass players, May 1972. Back row, from left to right: Adolph “Bud” Herseth, principal trumpet; James Gilbertson, assistant principal trombone; Jay Friedman, euphonium (principal trombone); Frank Crisafulli, second trombone; Edward Kleinhammer, bass trombone; Arnold Jacobs, tuba.

[Below] Members of the Chicago Symphony brass section, around 1975. Back row, left to right: Philip Smith, fourth trumpet; William Scarlett, third trumpet; Charles Geyer, second trumpet; Adolph “Bud” Herseth, principal trumpet; James Gilbertson, assistant principal trombone; Frank Crisafulli, second trombone; Edward Kleinhammer, bass trombone; Arnold Jacobs, tuba.

[Below] This photo was taken by my wife after my last lesson with Edward Kleinhammer, just before my graduation from Wheaton College, May 1976. The location is his studio in the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue, Chicago. He is holding his bass trombone made by Schilke with a bell by Earl Williams.

[Below] The caption on the back of this photo, in Edward Kleinhammer’s handwriting, reads, “Ravinia 1976.”

[Below] Edward Kleinhammer and Arnold Jacobs, c. 1984:

[Below] Edward Kleinhammer’s final concert with the Chicago Symphony in Orchestra Hall was in May 1985. These three photos (below) were taken during that concert and hung in his home office for many years after.

[Below] Edward Kleinhammer’s final bow at his chair in Orchestra Hall, May 1985. Also seen are Frank Crisafulli, second trombone, and Arnold Jacobs, tuba:

[Below] Edward Kleinhammer’s final concert in Orchestra Hall, May 1985. Here he is at the podium, being presented with the Chicago Symphony’s Theodore Thomas Medallion by guest conductor Michael Tilson Thomas:

[Below] Edward Kleinhammer’s Theodore Thomas Medallion, presented to him by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on the occasion of his retirement from the Orchestra:

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

The Theodore Thomas Medallion for Distinguished Service

Presented to Edward Kleinhammer

1940-1985

[Below] At the 2004 International Trombone Festival in Ithaca, New York, Edward Kleinhammer and George “Mr. Bass Trombone” Roberts met for the first time. It was a very special moment to see these two giants of the bass trombone from very different parts of the musical universe (classical and commercial) meet on stage together after Mr. Kleinhammer’s master class. George, ever effusive, came up to Ed and gave him a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. At the moment this interaction occurred, I was sitting in the audience with Ed’s wife, Dessie.

[Below] Edward Kleinhammer at home in Hayward, Wisconsin, around 2000 (photo by David Wilson). The mouthpiece in this Bach 50B3 is my YAMAHA Douglas Yeo Signature Series Mouthpiece that I had given to him several years earlier.

[Below] I kept in close contact with Mr. Kleinhammer over the years; I have several hundred hand written letters from him, even more emails, and we spoke by phone frequently. He always called me on August 31—his birthday— to wish my wife and me a happy anniversary. My wife and I were married on August 31, 1976, and every year, without fail, before I could pick up the phone to wish him a happy birthday, my phone rang and it was him, to wish us well. The last time I saw him was at his home in Hayward in 2009. This is how I will always remember him:

I last spoke to Ed a few days before he died. Nothing in his voice gave a clue that a week later, he would pass from this world to the next while taking a nap in his favorite chair. I am a better person and trombonist because of the influence of Edward Kleinhammer, and I know many others can say the same thing. Today, on what would have been his 100th birthday, we honor this man who did so much for so many.

Inspired in Japan – the 25th Hamamatsu International Wind Instrument Academy and Festival

I have been to Japan 14 or 15 times in my life; I’ve lost count. I first travelled to the island nation in 1986, on tour with the Boston Symphony and its music director Seiji Ozawa. More Boston Symphony and Boston Pops Orchestra (with John Williams, conducting) tours followed over the years. I have also been to Japan many times to teach and perform at the Hamamatsu International Wind Instrument Academy and Festival. I was on the faculty of the first Academy in 1995 and this month, I returned to Hamamatsu for the seventh (or eighth?) time to take part in its 25th anniversary event.

The Hamamatsu International Wind Instrument Academy and Festival has grown to be an event of major importance for wind players. Jointly sponsored by the City of Hamamatsu, the Hamamatsu Cultural Foundation, and YAMAHA Corporation, the Academy and Festival assembles an international faculty of wind instrument teachers and performers. Each teacher chooses a class of eight students from recorded auditions, and students receive four lessons during a week. Lessons are open —they are conducted in large rooms with plenty of seating—and teaching rooms are always full of those who want to learn from the teachers. As such, each lesson is as much a masterclass as it is a private lesson. Before the teaching part of the event begins, the faculty always give an opening concert which, over the years, has taken different forms. Sometimes faculty play solos with piano, sometimes they play chamber music, and sometimes they take part in large ensemble performances.

I was delighted to be invited to the 2019 Academy and Festival. Of the fifteen faculty members—there were between one and three classes for every wind instrument—there were four Americans: Otis Murphy, saxophone (professor, Indiana University), Chris Martin, trumpet (principal trumpet, New York Philharmonic), Gene Pokorny (principal tuba, Chicago Symphony), and myself. The other brass faculty members were Jeroen Berwaerts, trumpet (professor, Hochschule für Musik in Hannover), Jens Plücker, horn (principal horn, NDF Elbphilharmonie Orchester), and Anthony Caillet, euphonium (international soloist). Apart from Anthony, who I met and worked with for the first time, I knew all of the other brass faculty from our working together at previous Hamamatsu Academies.

Before the Academy started, several faculty members were invited to visit the YAMAHA Innovation Road Museum. This is new, a telling of the history of YAMAHA Corporation. The museum was fascinating to me, having been involved with YAMAHA since 1986.

Among the many interesting things about the Innovation Road Museum is that many of its instruments were available for the public to play. While we were visiting, we saw dozens of children playing pianos, guitars, and other instruments. This is a huge commitment on Yamaha’s part, since these instruments get heavy use and eventually need to be replaced. But this “hands-on” aspect of the exhibit showed how YAMAHA is committed to engaging the public with its work. Gene Pokorny (above) had a moment with a Sousaphone and his single note—played with GREAT enthusiasm—got everyone’s attention.

I learned a lot of the company’s history, including the fact that Torakusu Yamaha, the founder of YAMAHA Corporation, was originally named Torakusu Yamaba. He changed his name to Yamaha because he thought that name would be of greater interest to the export market. I learned many new things!

This year, the opening concert featured a brass ensemble that performed the world premiere of a newly commissioned work by Eric Ewazen, Hamamatsu Overture. The same ensemble played movements of Hans Werner Henze’s Ragtimes and Habaneras. Originally for brass band, it had been arranged for the Concertgebouw Brass. I had previously conducted this piece with a brass band (at the Boston Symphony’s summer home, Tanglewood, with members of the Boston Symphony, Empire Brass, and students from the Tanglewood Music Center—Henze was also in the audience for the performance) and I found this arrangement to be spectacular, and quite faithful to Henze’s original. It was such a pleasure to play in this brass ensemble. Was playing in a group ever easier or more rewarding than this, with such accomplished (and nice!) players? I don’t think so.

For the second half of the concert, the Festival had assembled a wind ensemble. The 15 faculty members made up the core of the group while it was filled out with other professional Japanese players. This was, for brasses, mostly a “one-on-a-part” band. I had not played in a band since the summer of 1980 when I played my last concert as a member of the Goldman Band in New York City (I was a member of the Goldman Band from 1977-1980) although I have conducted many bands over the years. The program consisted of several classic works for wind ensemble: the Second Suite of Gustav Holst, Darius Milhaud’s Suite Francaise, an arrangement of “Elsa’s Procession to the Cathedral” from Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin, and John Philip Sousa’s march, The Thunderer. Once again, playing in this band while sitting next to Anthony Caillet and Gene Pokorny was a rare and tremendously satisfying experience. The transparency of playing was notable, and the ensemble came together in a beautiful, rare way.

Here is a video of our performance of the Second Suite of Gustav Holst (edited by Ito Yasuhide), which you can also watch on YouTube:

Here is a video of our performance of Elsa’s Procession to the Cathedral of Richard Wagner (arr Hiroshi Hoshina), which you can also watch on YouTube:

And here is a video of our performance of The Thunderer of John Philip Sousa, which you can also watch on YouTube:

I was also very grateful to have been asked to pen a few words of congratulations to the Festival for inclusion in the opening concert program which you can read above.

We gathered on stage after the concert for a photo of the Academy professors. Two photos actually, each of which tell part of the story of our very enjoyable shared collaboration.

From the opening concert we began our days of teaching. My class had five tenor and three bass trombonists. Five women and three men. Over the years, I have had many different kinds of students. There is no age limit for the Academy, so in the past I have had both young players and professionals. This year, all of my students were young. One was 17, others were in college/university, and a few had recently graduated from college. But, wow, they had such talent! It was a joy to work with them; they were all eager to try, learn, experiment. I chose three phrases as the motto for our class:

Pay attention.

Try everything.

Chase greatness.

If we pay attention to everything around us—not just other trombone players—there is much we can bring to our artistic/musical expression. If we try every option for every decision we face as musicians—where to breathe, what slide position to use, etc.—we can benefit from the improvement we make each day and not become fossilized with ideas that we implemented when we first laid our eyes on a piece of music. And from the Chicago Bears, I brought “chase greatness.” You must first know what greatness IS and when you see it, run after it, hunt it down, embrace it, and make it yours. My students bought into this and worked very hard. All of them —ALL of them!—had major breakthroughs in their playing at each lesson. I cannot remember ever seeing this happen. But this class was special. Very, very special.

Another nice aspect of this event was the fact that my translator was Nozomi Kasano (on the right in the photo above). I first met Nozomi at the 10th Hamamatsu Academy and Festival in 2005. She subsequently came to Boston to study with me at New England Conservatory of Music where she earned a graduate diploma and Master’s degree. The then returned to Japan where she won the position of bass trombonist with the Japan Century Orchestra in Osaka. I am so proud of her. This was the third time Nozomi had been my translator in Japan (she did this six years ago at the 20th Academy, and two years ago when I was the guest artist at the Nagoya Trombone Festival). She knows me so well, and translates more than just my words—she translates ME. Also, our class pianist was Hitomi Takara (in the middle in the photo above), a superb artist with whom I had worked with at the Academy in the past. She was my accompanist five years ago at the 21st Academy, both for my class and for me when I gave a recital at the Hamamatsu Museum of Musical Instruments. Having them with me again made the trombone class room a very, very happy place.

Speaking of the Musical Instrument Museum, I enjoyed another visit before the Academy started. I was surprised and delighted to find video screens installed throughout the museum where visitors can both hear and see several instruments being played. This is a great addition to the musical instrument museum, and my surprise was even greater when I went to look at the museum’s serpent collection and found a video there of me playing serpent during my recital.

The Academy also features a concert of student performers. Each class holds an audition of all of its students and one player from each studio is chosen by the professor to represent the class on the student concert. The winner that I chose to represent the trombone class on the concert was Miho Ogose, a University senior. She played the first movement of Eric Ewazen’s Concerto for Bass Trombone. Like all of my students, she played with exceptional musicality. All of us in the trombone class were so proud of her and her performance was absolutely great. Look at the photo above, taken right after the concert. The look on Miho’s face—surrounded by other trombone players from our class who were congratulating her on her performance—reflects the joy of music and music making. It was a special moment for all of us.

The Academy and Festival concluded with a farewell party at Mein Schloss, a German beer hall near the ACT City Hamamatsu complex where all of our concerts and teaching took place (we also stayed at the Okura Hotel ACT City). This is always a fun event, with plenty of food and drink, and performances by each class. Some are silly, some are more serious, and when we drew lots to determine the order in which classes would play at the party, the trombone class drew last! So we wrapped up the festivities with performances of my friend Stephen Bulla’s arrangement of Londonderry Air and an arrangement of 76 Trombones that I commissioned from my friend Ken Amis, tubist of the Empire Brass. Fun times.

As my plane took off from Tokyo and I watched the Pacific Ocean come into view, I reflected on my days in Japan. I have so many memories from my trips to that fascinating country. I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with so many Japanese students over the years. I have friendships with many players and teachers, as well as many employees of YAMAHA Corporation, with whom I have collaborated for many years to make the bass trombone (YBL822G) and mouthpiece (Douglas Yeo Signature Series Mouthpiece) that I have played for so long. Wonderful food, interesting experiences, deep friendships, students who are eager to learn. It all combined to make for an especially satisfying trip. While it is true that “there’s no place like home,” traveling around the world has opened my eyes to many things and has made a deep imprint on how I think and live. Thank you, Hamamatsu International Wind Instrument Academy and Festival, its organizers (especially Naoki Suzuki of YAMAHA), faculty, translators, pianists, and students. All of you are a big part of my life. Thank you for this time we shared together. I hope to see all of you again soon.

[Photo above: Sunset at 38,000 feet, above the clouds, over the Pacific Ocean. August 11, 2019.]

[Featured photo at the top of this article: Several faculty members of the 25th Hamamatsu International Wind Instrument Academy and Festival after the Opening Concert. Left to right: Otis Murphy, Jean-Yves Fourmeau, Nobuya Sugawa, Anthony Caillet, Gene Pokorny, Douglas Yeo.]

Rewarded: a new book

I love to write. Ever since I was a young boy, I have been passionate about writing. Give me a 2,000 word essay on a school exam any day over three math problems. My love of writing was birthed from my love of reading, something imparted to me by my parents. My father was Chairman of our local public library while I was going up, and every week, my brothers and I trekked to the the library to take out another stack of books to read. I was fortunate to attend schools that emphasized reading, whether contemporary literature (a little), the classics (a lot), and the ancients (Edith Hamilton’s Mythology remains a favorite).

I’m at work writing several books at the moment. In the introduction to The Trombone Book, a planned 500 page book I’m writing for Oxford University Press that will cover the history, use, performance, teaching, and care of the instrument (for trombone players who are reading this, think of this book as the successor to the long out of print Trombone Technique by Denis Wick), I’ve written these words:

In a sense, I have been writing this book since I first picked up the trombone in 1964. My parents, Alan and Jeannine Yeo, now gone from this world to the next, taught me to pay attention. From them I received the gift of a disciplined work ethic and the understanding that it was required to succeed in anything. They instilled in me a love of books and reading, and from that it was not a far walk to a love of writing. I grew to appreciate words and how they were put together, and I particularly thank Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Enoch Arden), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Evangeline), Herman Melville (Moby Dick), Thomas Hardy (Under the Greenwood Tree and The Choirmaster’s Burial), J. D. Salinger (Catcher in the Rye), William Buckley (The Right Word) and Jacques Barzun (many books, but especially Berlioz and the Romantic Century, From Dawn to Decadence, The Use and Abuse of Art, The Culture We Deserve, and Darwin, Marx, Wagner: Critique of a Heritage) for their exceptional modeling of the possibilities of the English language. An exasperated Abigail Adams was known to say to her husband, John, whose predilection for long narrative introductions before getting to the main point used to annoy her to no end, “John! Do you always have to start at Genesis?” Like our Second President, I confess to being guilty as charged, and also to finding solace in the writing of the Apostle Paul, whose first sentence of his letter to the Romans contains 132 words before the insertion of the punctuation mark we call the period. Stopping a thought is sometimes hard to do.

I love well crafted sentences, the putting together of words, how they flow past the eye and off the lips.

As much as I like writing, I also like what happens before writing: research. I don’t write fiction; I write about music and music making, musical instruments and real people and history. I love the chase, the tracking down of facts both obscure and well known, the hunt for needles in haystacks. It is intense, patient, time-consuming, frustrating, and rewarding work. And I never tire of it.

So, today is a particularly happy day for me, as my mailman brought me a most welcome package: several copies of my newest book, Serpents, Bass Horns and Ophicleides at the Bate Collection, just published by the University of Oxford in Oxford, England.

The Bate Collection in Oxford has a superb collection of musical instruments. I visited there in 2009 and had the opportunity to play several instruments under the watchful eye of my friend, curator Andrew Lamb.

The Collection is a veritable “Ali Baba’s cave” of musical instruments, as you can see from this snapshot of one of the many display cases:

In 2011, Andrew Lamb asked if I would be interested in writing a book about The Bate’s collection of serpents and related instruments. It took me all of one second to agree, although the project was delayed for many reasons. It was not as simple as sitting down and getting to work; a great deal of groundwork needed to be laid. And I also needed time to research and write. In 2012, I retired from the Boston Symphony and promptly flunked retirement and took the full time position of Professor of Trombone at Arizona State University. That job, as wonderful as it was, was all-consuming, and with many other writing projects going at the same time, the Bate book had to wait. But there was much to do as well, including collecting detailed information about all of The Bate’s instruments, arranging for high quality photos to be taken of each instrument, as well as research into the instruments themselves. I devised a plan for the structure of the book and last year, I began discussions with Bryn Walls, a superb designer who had been engaged to lay out and put the book together.

As you can see from the first page of table of contents above, the book is divided into two primary sections. After a Foreward by Craig Kridel (not a Forward – remember that this book is published in England and England and the USA are two countries separated by a common language – my text needed to undergo “Anglicization” so its spelling and punctuation conformed to British publishing style), five chapters of Historical Context appear. In this section, I wrote a brief history of the instruments as seen through those at The Bate.

The second section of the book is a detailed discussion of the instruments at The Bate. My commentary is greatly enhanced by superb photos of the instruments by Gary Ombler. Following the discussion of the instruments is a brief section of back matter, including a checklist of the instruments, a bibliography so readers and learn more, a bio and photo of moi, and a page with the index and acknowledgements.

Each instrument is afforded its own two page spread, with at least two full views of the instrument (sometimes there are three or four – front, back, and sides), many photographs of detailed elements of the instruments, as well as my commentary.

With this book, serpents, bass horns, and ophicleides at The Bate come alive in a new way. Visitors to the Collection can walk through the gallery with the book in hand as they look at the instruments and learn more than the identifying label next to the instrument itself can tell them. Those who can’t get to The Bate can enjoy the instruments while sitting at home in their favorite (whoops – favourite) chair. 80 pages of photos and commentary about some of the most interesting musical instruments ever conceived and manufactured.

The book is now available through the Bate Collection’s online publications store; click HERE to go there in a new browser window. Or, of course, you can stop by the Bate Collection yourself and pick one up there. I am delighted that this book, the subject a long period of research, writing, layout, and proofreading, is now available. Holding copies in my hand today is a great reward at the end of a long process. I will enjoy this moment, but tomorrow I’ll be happily back to my other writing projects. More on them soon!

An Easter reflection

Today is Easter. It is a day that remembers an event of monumental importance: the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The story has been told countless times, and Christians around the world celebrated Easter with song, sermons, and the reading of Scripture.

There are four accounts of the death and resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel accounts in the Bible – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Each highlights particular moments in those world-changing days nearly 2000 years ago. In 2016, my wife and I traveled to Israel with a tour group sponsored by our undergraduate alma mater, Wheaton College. The trip was life changing, as we visited many of the traditional sites where pivotal events in the Bible took place. One such site was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built over the traditional sites of the crucifixion and burial of Jesus. The photo at the top of this blog entry on The Last Trombone is one I took of the tomb of Jesus in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Do we know for sure that he was actually buried there? No, but since at least around 400 AD, Christian pilgrims have venerated this particular place as being the site. I do not engage in debates over whether this or that site is THE site. It enough that I was in the neighborhood.

Artists over the centuries have depicted the resurrection of Jesus as a cataclysmic event, replete with angels and earthquakes, and the moving away of the stone that covered the entrance of the tomb. The Bible tells of this (Matthew 28:1-4):

And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men.

Typical of such artistic representations is the one below that I saw a few days ago at the Art Institute of Chicago.

The painting is by Cecco del Caravaggio, whose real name was Francesco Buoneri, and it was painted in 1619-1620. Christ appears on top of his tomb, and an angel is dispatching Roman soldiers who were guarding the tomb. Cecco’s use of light and dark is exceptional, and I spent a long time sitting in the museum’s gallery and contemplating the event that it depicts.

But in 2017, when my wife and I traveled to Italy on another Wheaton College alumni tour — a tour that took us to Florence and Rome — I saw another painting of the resurrection that has stuck in my mind ever since. This painting was in the Galleria dell’ Accademia in Florence, in the same museum that houses Michelangelo’s iconic statue of David. The painting, by Andrea del Sarto, was painted in the early sixteenth century and presents a very different view of the resurrection of Christ.

Here is a moment before the the earthquake; we see no guards, no angel. It shows Jesus in His tomb at the moment of his resurrection. The wounds from his crucifixion are visible, as are some of his burial cloths. The image is one of quiet contemplation. I am sure I was not alone, when standing before this painting, in asking the question: What was Jesus thinking at this moment?

What I find interesting in all of this is that the Bible is silent about what actually happened inside the tomb at the moment when Christ was raised from the dead. He was dead, buried in the tomb. Then at some point over the next two days, Christ was resurrected, and somehow, in some way, he left the tomb. Two days after his agonizing death on the cross, the tomb was empty. Mary Magdeline was shocked to see the tomb empty when she came to visit it two days after the crucifixion of Jesus, but an angel spoke to her with these earth-shattering words (Matthew 28:6):

He is not here, for he has risen.

I like to meditate on both of these paintings which depict two moments surrounding the resurrection of Jesus. Both speak to the same thing: Jesus was dead, buried, and was raised from the dead. In the days and weeks that followed, He appeared in physical form — not as some kind of ghost or apparition — before hundreds of people. This is documented not only by the Bible, but by other, independent writers. The resurrection of Jesus happened. It was and is true, and it changed the world and the life of every person in it. As the Apostle Paul reminds us (1 Corinthians 15:17-20):

If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead.

C. S. Lewis spoke to this fact in his book, Mere Christianity. I have previously quoted him in my article on The Last Trombone about Christmas, but his words are worth repeating here:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about [Jesus]: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.”

That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice.

Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

The death of Jesus Christ. His burial. His resurrection. It happened. And it matters. Happy Easter.