I don't earn anything from these emails, and I don't want to.

Sharing my life’s work is a way of connecting with people, that's all.

Last January I published a book — “What Book Next?” — offering it exclusively to friends and fans, promising that all profits would be donated to the scholarship fund at Leaves of Learning, the school where I teach part-time. (French, Music Theory, Storytelling.) The suggested price for this 100-page book was $10 though many of you kindly sent contributions larger than that amount.

I’m proud to say that, to date, my little “What Book Next?” project has garnered nearly $2,000 for the scholarship fund.

Now I’m putting the final touches on another book, a collection of my humorous writings titled, “Was That Your Piece?” It will come out this January in celebration of my 70th birthday, again with all profits given over to ‘my’ school.

As before, the only announcement of this new book will be the email I will send to all of you, my 750 friends and fans, who permit me to send you these weekly emails. No marketing. It won’t be in book stores or for sale on-line.

A 200-page book, “Was That Your Piece?” will have a suggested price of $25 and an invitation to contribute a higher amount, if desired, to support the scholarship fund.

Again, I will earn nothing from this publication and I don’t want to. The smiles and laughter that this drole book will generate and the support of the scholarship fund will be payment aplenty. And that’s to say nothing of all the fun I’ve had in writing and assembling this collection. I did it for love.

All the fruits of my life’s work — my compositions, books and teaching — are, I hope, expressions of love.

Today, I am sharing “Three Love Songs,” settings I wrote in 1998 of three lovely poems by the American poet Sara Teasdale.

1. Youthful Love: “Love Me”

Brown-thrush singing all day long
In the leaves above me,
Take my love this April song,
“Love me, love me, love me!”

When he harkens what you say,
Bid him, lest he miss me,
Leave his work or leave his play,
And kiss me, kiss me, kiss me!

2. Unrequited Love: “Night Song at Amalfi”

I asked the heaven of stars
What I should give my love —
It answered me with silence,
Silence above.

I asked the darkened sea
Down where the fishes go —
It answered me with silence,
Silence below.

Oh, I could give him weeping,
Or I could give him song —
But how can I give silence
My whole life long?

3. Love at the End: “Let it be You”

Let it be you who lean above me
On my last day,
Let it be you who shut my eyelids
Forever and aye.
Say a "Goodnight" as you have said it
All of these years,
With the old look, with the old whisper
And without tears.

To see and hear these “Three Love Songs” performed by mezzo soprano Megan Potter and pianist Sharon Grimes, copy and paste this link into your browser:
https://youtu.be/VYY-xzUvpsI

To see a PDF of the score, click on the link above.

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Happy Valentine’s Day --

Romance? Not my turf.

I fell in love when I was seventeen with the gentlewoman to whom I have now been married for 48.5 years. It’s sweet, marrying your high school sweetheart and living happily ever after, but it’s not much of a story. A story needs conflict, episodes, heights and depths, adventures, climaxes, a dénoument.

For better or worse, I have no repertoire of stories about ‘the dating scene,’ “seeing” someone, breaking up, being ‘out there.’

Still, Valentine's Day calls for something Romantic. You are invited to discover my Three Love Songs, heartfelt settings of brief poems about love by Sarah Teasdale. They are sung in this recording with great warmth and depth of feeling by Diane Haslam, for whose voice the songs were conceived and to whom the set is dedicated. You'll also discover the playing of Phil Amalong, a wonderfully sensitive collaborative pianist.

The singing of mezzo-soprano Diane Haslam entered my life when I was mid-way through my composing career. I wrote fully 28 songs specifically for her. Too, many of my later instrumental works, especially those featuring the clarinet, were influenced by the gorgeous, almost clarinet-like quality of her rich, dark voice.

Here are the three poems comprising the Three Love Songs. Teasdale’s original titles are in quotation marks.

I. Youthful Love: “Love Me”

Brown thrush singing all day long
in the leaves above me,
Take my love this April song:
"Love me, love me, love me."

When he hearkens what you say,
bid him, lest he miss me,
Leave his work or leave his play
and kiss me, kiss me, kiss me.

II. Unrequited Love: “Night Song at Amalfi”

I asked the heaven of stars,
what should I give my love?
It answered me with silence, silence above.

I asked the darken'd sea,
down where the fishers go.
It answered me with silence, silence below.

Oh, I could give him weeping
or I could give him song.
But how can I give him
silence my whole life long?

III. Love at the End: “Let it be You”

Let it be you who lean above me,
on my last day.
Let it be you who shut my eyelids,
forever and aye.

O, say a "Good night" as you have said it,
all these years,
With the old look, with the old whisper
and without tears.

Despite the admonishment to be “without tears,” when the final phrase of that last song unfolds, I weep.

I have to smile at myself a little because it reminds me of what Spencer Tracy says in “Adam’s Rib” when Kate Hepburn begins to cry:
“Here it comes,” he says, “the Old Juice.”

To hear Diane singing Three Love Songs, accompanied by Phil Amalong, click on the link above.

To see a PDF of the score, click on the link above.

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Very few of my works are about romantic love, though most were prompted, one way or another, by impulses of love, affection, friendship. Almost all of my pieces were written for specific friends, usually performing musicians.

Many are programmatic, evoking places near and far, the changing seasons, nature, humor, literature, history, spirituality, sometimes current events.

But romance? Rarely.

Still, it's April. Lord Tennyson observed, “In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.” He was 26 when he penned those words. Had he expressed the notion fifty years later, when he was my age, he might have added, “Old men, too!”

Sara Teasdale is another who, when she wrote about love, often evoked springtime and April in particular.

I “did a search,” as we say nowadays, and found an abundance of references to April in her poems. “Take on board” (another current expression) these fragments of her poems, each an invocation of April:

“Willow in your April gown
Delicate and gleaming …”

“And with a windy April grace
The little clouds go by.”

“I went out on an April morning
All alone, for my heart was high …”
“When April bends above me
And finds me fast asleep …”

“When April tells the thrushes,
The meadow-larks will know …”

“For love that smiled in April
Is false to me in May.”

“It was April when you came the first time to me,
And my first look in your eyes was like my first look at the sea.
We have been together four Aprils now,
Watching for the green on the swaying willow bough …”

“When I am dead and over me bright April
Shakes out her rain-drenched hair …”

Her poems touch on other months, but none so often as April. What was it about April that awakened her muse? Was it the new year springing from the ruins of the old? Rebirth, transformation, resurrection? The expectation of joy?

Perhaps April’s gradual greening reminded her of something we all know but tend to forget: that the capacity to love, though lost for a time, can return.

That is the theme of my all-time favorite film, “Enchanted April.” Have you seen it? You really should. Such a lovely tale and the film score is beautiful.

Should I be granted the favor of your continued attention after these maunderings, please give a listen to Diane Haslam performing, with accompanist Phil Amalong, a song titled “Love Me”. It is the first of Three Love Songs, written specifically for Diane’s glorious voice, settings of poems by Sara Teasdale.

To hear Diane singing that song, click on the link above.
http://www.sowash.com/recordings/mp3/love_me_from_3_love_songs.mp3

To see a PDF of the score, click on the link above.
http://www.sowash.com/recordings/mp3/love_me_from_3_love_songs.pdf

If you’d like to hear Diane’s rendition of all three songs, click on the link above.

To see a PDF of the score, click on the link above.