A glissando is a continuous slide up or down between two notes.

Remember the trombones you’ve heard sliding up from a low note? Remember the piano players whom you’ve seen sweep the hands, palms up, across the keys making a sort of “whooping” sound? Those are big glissandos. Or Harpo running his thumb across all the strings of the harp that just happens to be sitting there in the garden he’s running through?

You’ve also heard minute glissandos when someone like soprano Renée Fleming slides every so subtly from one note to the next. When singers do this, it’s called portamento.

Glissandos can be overdone and melodramatic, either because of ‘bad taste’ or because that’s the nature of the style of music. Remember the barbershop quartets you’ve heard? The glissando is an important element of the barbershop quartet style of singing.

And then there’s the Blues, which uses glissandos in a way unique to that style of music.

My “Blues” for solo cello is not really “the Blues” any more than “Rhapsody in Blue” is jazz. Rather it uses elements of the Blues to do things no Blues musician would do.

In the hands of my friend cellist Michael Ronstadt, this music moves beyond the realms of either classical music or the Blues. Employing a slower tempo than I indicated, inserting glissandos all over the place and playing with deep feeling and a sense that we have “all the time in the world,” he creates a musical entity that amazes me. There are sounds in his rendition which I did not know a cello could make, particularly in the last few bars.

The recording I want you to hear was made during a ‘home concert’ we presented in our home for friends and fans last January. This was the premiere performance and no one other than the audience in our home that day has heard this new piece. Listening to the link below, you’ll hear a beautifully rendered piece of music that almost no one has heard.

Unlike, say, the Bach cello suites, this music comes to you with no long-standing cultural imprimatur. We know, even before a performance begins, that the Bach cello suites are world-class masterworks. We set aside our critical judgment. No use arguing, Bach is The Master.

But when we hear brand-new music, it comes with no blessings, no sanctions from critics, no history of hundreds of performances, no recordings, no youtubes. This frees us to make of it what we will, affords us the rare opportunity to use our critical judgment afresh, clean of prejudices.

I wonder if you will love this performance as much as I do. To hear Michael Ronstadt playing “Blues” for solo cello, click on the link above.

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

I'd love to know what you think about this music; reply if you're inclined. But please don't feel that you are expected to reply. I'm just glad to share my work in this way.

As always, feel free to forward this message to friends who might enjoy it.

Anyone can be on my little list of recipients for these mpFrees (as I call these musical emails). To sign up, people can email me at rick@sowash.com, sending just one word: "Yes." I'll know what it means.

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
Mar. 10, 2024