Of my own works, my song cycle Bright April is among my half dozen favorites.

It was inspired by John Jacob Niles, a remarkable American composer and collector of folk songs. He is credited with "Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair," "I Wonder as I Wander," and "Go 'Way from My Window" ... three of our most beautiful American folk songs. I saw him at one of his last performances, around 1978. He was 85 and spell-binding. He sang in a sweet falsetto, accompanying himself on a giant dulcimer, the size of a cello.

I was very moved by his performance and I wrote this piece in 1980 as a response and tribute, a cycle of songs for soprano accompanied only by a cello, reminiscent of Nile's falsetto accompanied only by that giant dulcimer. It is a setting of six beautiful, pure, simple poems by Sarah Teasdale, about a woman's responses to love.

Too, I wrote the piece as a performance vehicle for married friends -- a soprano and a cellist. They were a lovely pair in those days and the piece expressed the lovely quality everyone saw in their relationship, though it did not last. Strangely, the poems touch on the transience of love, too, though I did not think about that at the time. I’ll include the poems below.

One time in Paris, I played this piece for a French soprano, trying to play the cello part on the piano and singing the songs as best I could, roughly translating into French as I went along. That was a challenge! When I finished, she asked me to play it again. Midway through, she suddenly made a strange choking sound. I thought she was laughing. I looked around to find that she had burst into tears. It was a little unsettling for us both, but one of the best compliments ever given to my music.

Fifteen years ago the cycle was recorded by Susan Olson, who wrote her doctoral dissertation on my vocal music. The only people who have heard this piece have been those in attendance, here and there, when it has been performed live. Sharing music with you through these mpFrees has allowed works like this to come to the ears of friends and fans who would never hear it otherwise. I am deeply grateful to have this technology and to have an audience for it in the form of the recipients of these mpFree messages.

At 12 min., 15 seconds, the piece is a little longer than those I usually send but I hope you will take the time to listen to it all the way through. The loveliest moments are toward the end, as sadness overtakes the love story, though for a composer the most poignant line is certainly the first one: A little while when I am gone my life will live in music after me....

4/27/14 To hear mezzo Susan Olson sing Bright April, click on the link above.

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

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
April 27, 2014

Below is the text for Bright April for lyric soprano and cello (1980)
The poems are by Sarah Teasdale.
1. A Little While
2. A Maiden
3. Less Than the Cloud to the Wind
4. I Shall Not Care
5. Grey Eyes
6. Gifts
7. Reprise: A Little While

A little while when I am gone my life will live in music after me,
as spun foam lifted and borne on after the wave is lost in the full sea.
Awhile these nights and days will burn in song with the bright frailty of foam,
living in light before they turn back to the nothingness that is their home.

Oh if I were the velvet rose upon the red rose vine,
I'd climb to touch his window and make his casement fine.
And if I were the brighteye'd bird that twitters on the tree,
All day I'd sing my love for him 'til he should hearken me.
But since I am a maiden I go with downcast eyes
And he will never hear the songs that he has turned to sighs.
And since I am a maiden my love will never know
that I could kiss him with a mouth more red than roses blow.

Less than the cloud to the wind, less than the foam to the sea,
less than the rose to the storm am I to thee.
More than the star to the night, more than the rain to the tree,
more than heaven to earth art thou to me.

When I am dead and over me bright April shakes out her raindrenched hair,
though you should lean above me broken hearted, I shall not care.
I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful when rain bends down the bough,
and I shall be more silent and cold hearted than you are now.

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,
yet, whenever I turn to your gray eyes over me,
it is as though I looked for the first time at the sea.

I gave my first love laughter, I gave my second tears,
I gave my third love silence through all the years.
My first love gave me singing, my second eyes to see,
but oh my third love gave my soul to me.

Reprise: A little while when I am gone.... etc.