STS faculty Nathan Zgonc, Colin Williams, Bradley Palmer and George Curran perform Beethoven's Drei Equali at the 2012 Southeast Trombone Symposium. Two altos, tenor and bass was a fun way to do it! The STS is held annually at the Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University in Columbus, GA.
As can be seen in the score, Beethoven really did compose these extremely beautiful, simple little pieces for trombone quartet, one of the more familiar of instrumental ensembles then, especially in Germany where it had long been associated with church music. Trombone quartets often played from the tops of churches, especially on special occasions.
I read that these pieces were played at his funeral.
Another composer, Charles Tomlinson Griffes who died unexpectedly in the great influenza pandemic following WWI was laid to rest with no music arranged for the service, Here is what Edward Maisel says about it in his biography of Griffes:
Funeral services were held in the Community Chapel of the Church of the Messiah, 34th street and Park Avenue, at two o'clock on Saturday afternoon, April 10th. It had been decided to have no music, but the Bach Trombone Choir from the parapet of the 71st Regiment Armory across the street (where a music festival was in progress) provided unexpected accompaniment as the services began. Miss Boughton,[his remarkably devoted piano teacher] recalling her student's long devotion to Bach, later commemorated the incident in a poem:
'Twas fitting, Bach, that in the last sad hour,
... ' twas thy music, flung upon the air
Should be his requiem
I've also read that his friends who were familiar with his taste in men (his closest known romantic relationship was with a NYC policeman) thought it was especially appropriate that the trombonists were in uniform. I wouldn't say that this was necessarily any evidence of purpose in the universe. Just sayin'.
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