Many people understandably assume that if a piece of music strikes them as sad then the composer must have been sad when the piece was written.

I am only one of myriad composers past and present, but for what it’s worth, my experience does not bear this out.

If we are sad -- any of us, not just composers -- we move in ‘slow motion’ and are disinclined to take on more than the necessary chores like letting the dog out into the fenced-in backyard. That much we had better manage -- or else.

If we are depressed, even those chores seem beyond us. When not in bed we sit on the couch, still in our robe, pajamas and slippers and stare at the TV, indifferent to what is broadcast.

By stark contrast, composing -- even the writing of sad music -- is an exercise of vital powers along lines of excellence.

I have known sadness and I have written music expressing sadness but I was not sad when I composed that sad music. I have known joy and I have written music expressing joy but I was not joyful when I composed that joyful music. In fact, I was distracted away from whatever was making me sad or joyful at the time.

Music that is yet to be written could be thought of as existing on a different plane, part of an unseen, unheard, alternate Reality. Coaxing music across the invisible border that separates our “real” world from that other Reality -- which is what composers do -- requires, energy, intense concentration and alertness. As the ideas are notated, the composer questions them: what do you want to do? where do you want to go? is this adventure a journey moving toward a destination or a conflict moving toward a resolution?

The music will answer questions like these but, to perceive the answers, the composer must listen deeply. A listening composer neither weeps with sadness nor dances with joy. Those are not feelings experienced when one is listening deeply.

What DO I feel when I’m composing? The same quiet excitement that comes when we are at work on a jigsaw puzzle and the pieces are falling into place. Or when we are playing chess except without the competitive element.

Yet it is NOT like a puzzle or a chess game because, unlike those activities, composing elicits fear. Of what? Fear that I’m going to blow it, that I’m going to drop the ball, settle for less, compromise, say to myself, “Oh, that’s good enough,” and let it go.

And the thing is, I almost always do. Oh, I try my best, but the end result almost always falls short of what I felt it had the chance to be when I started work on it. Oh well.

Similarly, I try to be serene, kind, patient and wise but am instead fractious, grandiose, manic, silly, cerebral and oblivious. In short, human.

I try my best to “spread sweetness and light.” I put the phrase in quotation marks because it is one of the mottoes by which I try to live.

It occurred to me to try to write a piece of music that would convey sweetness and light and the result is the piece I want to share with you today.

“Sweetness and Light” was written last year and recorded just last week by cellist Michael Ronstadt and pianist Beth Troendly. I think you’ll hear the “sweetness” in the opening measures and the “light” in the final measures and myriad minglings of the sweetness and light in the measures that fall between the opening and the ending.

To hear Michael and Beth performing “Sweetness and LIght,” click on the link above.

There's also a link to a PDF of the score.