"If folk think I get over-exercised by Tall Poppy Syndrome and the like at this stage of my life, I hope this true story of the magnificent, magical Maestro Trounson gives them pause."

When I was a youngster I played Solo Cornet in the local brass band. "Solo Cornet" doesn't mean you play the cornet on your own; it means you're one of several principal players responsible for carrying the melody. It's the equivalent of First Violin in an orchestra.

In the official scheme of things, our band was graded "D," the lowest possible grading, for reasons that would have been obvious enough to any discerning listener (and probably to undiscerning ones as well). For years the band had barely coasted, with no inspirational conductor to lift its sights and stir its ambitions.

Until Ray Trounson came along.

Ray Trounson ran a music store in nearby Palmerston North. He loved and lived music, and it had to be right. He brought his fire-breathing perfectionism to the Feilding Municipal Band—which alas, was not at all ready for it.

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Early on in his tenure—it may indeed be our first session with him—he takes us through a hymn called "Rochdale." Toscanini-like, he coaxes, bullies and outright terrifies us into attacking and releasing together, ebbing and flowing with the phrases and making them sing, turning a stolid dirge into ... well, a hymn, a thing of exaltation and worship. The transformation the temperamental Trounson wreaks in the space of an hour is a revelation.

We rehearse a march called "Excelsior." It begins with four semi-quavers on Middle C. My fellow-Solo Cornettist (there are just two of us at the time, with reinforcements brought in when needed for public performances) has always muddied the damn things. Trounson is soon pouncin'. He isn't going to let us out of the starting gate till we properly articulate those bloody semi-quavers. Over and over the opening bars we go. I know I am getting my tongue round those semis, but I also know that Trounson is assuming it's 12-year-old me who's blurring them. And of course, I can't be a snitch and say it ain't! Finally, taking mercy on the rest of the band, Tyrant Trounson relents, accepts the muddied semis and lets us all get on with the rest of the march.

The following week my playing partner is away. It's just me, literally solo on Solo Cornet.

"Excelsior!" commands Toscanini.

"Great! Now's my chance," I think.

His baton goes up ... it comes down. "Ratatatatat ..." Four pristinely precise semi-quavers, exquisitely articulated by moi, rend the air, and we're off.

Or not.

"STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Well, we made it to Bar Five, at least.

Tyrant Trounson is rounding on me. And I thought I'd nailed those bastards.

But wait. That's not rage on his face, it's amazement.

"Was that you?!"

I don't have the presence of mind to say, "Well, there's no other bugger it could have been."

No need. Reality dawns. Maestro exclaims, "Hell, it's better with some people away!"

A few weeks proceed like this, with the band's playing reaching new heights (or rather, being lifted from the depths). Many players are being inspired ... but a few feathers are getting ruffled in the process. Some weeks, Mr. Trounson is ill, and practice is cancelled. Turns out he has a dodgy ticker, and it's related to that.

Then there's ... A Meeting. To discuss the band's future. "Why?" I think. "The band's future is surely golden."

At The Meeting, some players intone solemnly about Mr. Trounson's health, and conclude that the band must find a new conductor.

I am inwardly incredulous. Mr. Trounson's absences are scarcely chronic, and his presences more than make up for them. There's no suggestion he's about to expire and he doesn't want to step down—why can we not just carry on lurching upward?

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I didn't see Toscanini again for three or four years. Still in schoolboy shorts, I'd become conductor of our school choir in the absence of any teacher up to the job. I needed a baton. Where to buy one? Maestro Trounson's music shop of course!

He was a picture of health.

It wasn't till years later still, when I encountered the words "command to rise," that the real reason for that night's events dawned on me: Mr. Trounson's heart was not too unstable; it was too big. He'd given us a "command to rise"—and we didn't want to hear it. It meant people getting their feelings hurt. It meant hard work. It meant commitment to being the best we could be. It meant total passion for the total height. The band languished at D-Grade for decades thereafter. I wasn't there, but I knew, and I wasn't surprised.

I'd gone on to study music at university, where I was told that chainsaws and traffic were musical and the sound of glass being broken was beautiful. The local musicati gathered together once a week and reverently listened to tapes of just such "beauty." I still had no clue about nihilism, or Tall Poppy Syndrome, or hatred of the good for being the good, or postmodernism, or any of it ... and I didn't last long. Perhaps I wouldn't have lasted long anyway, and I can't complain about my alternate career. But if folk think I get over-exercised by Tall Poppy Syndrome and the like at this stage of my life, I hope this true story of the magnificent, magical Maestro Trounson gives them pause.