Our son, Chapman, 31, is my favorite guy. On his Facebook page, he advises his friends: “Be an interesting Cincinnatian” and he practices what he preaches. An extraordinarily versatile trombonist, he has made numerous tours of America and Europe with a variety of bands. Here in Cincinnati, he’s the co-founder of the Hot Magnolias, the Queen City’s chief exponent of traditional New Orleans jazz. But he also plays with several other bands, 'local and beyond,’ in styles ranging through reggae, ska, rockabilly, Dixieland, soul and funk. He’s making his fourth European tour next month as a guest trombonist with The Toasters, a famous ska band.

He’s written only a few songs, but they are strong. The Blues song he wrote and played at my mother-in-law’s funeral brought tears to our eyes. His ska tune is entitled “Higher Ground” and was recorded by another band he helped to found, The Pinstripes. I liked the opening tune of “Higher Ground" so much that I made it the recurring theme in the joyful, exuberant "Finale" movement of my cello concerto. I want to share that movement with you today.

At the website linked above, you’ll hear Chap's tune immediately, catchy and compelling, played by the brass. Take in at least the first thirty seconds so that when you listen to the “Finale" concerto movement, posted below, you’ll see how it was adapted. Click on the link to hear The Pinstripes playing Chap’s tune, “Higher Ground.”

Since the tune is the style of ska, the tempo of the “Finale" movement of my concerto is indicated as "Tempo di ska.” The opening three measures establish the beat, the key and the feel. Then the solo cello renders Chap’s tune, somewhat as you heard it in “Higher Ground.” The same, yet not the same.

Next, right quick, the clarinet plays tune as a trickster might, ornamented and sassy, an octave higher than the cello you just heard and with jazz and Klezmer inflections.

Thus, the clarinet immediately establishes itself as a rival to the cello. It’s a theatrical device. Sometimes the clarinet steals the spotlight from the solo cello. At other times the clarinet supports the cello’s solo role. At still other times the clarinet retreats, a pale color amid the strings.

It’s a metaphor. The clarinet is the piece’s only wind instrument and the only black instrument in the ensemble. All the other instruments are the color of varnished wood. The clarinet is the outsider — or is he? It’s as if the clarinet is the black man in a white society or a Jew in Christendom. What is the difference between merely being present and truly belonging? What does it mean to belong? Having one’s contributions accepted and appreciated by the majority?

Consider that ska was created by Jamaicans, jazz and the blues by African-Americans and Klezmer by Jews. And here is our clarinet friend, in this concerto, evoking ska, jazz and Klezmer. See what’s happening? But, here, in this work, the clarinet is not an outsider, not a “black sheep,” because in this work those ‘outsider’ minority musical traditions are reconciled with classical European traditions.

How? At 2:15 the music abruptly, unexpectedly turns 18th-century, Viennese. With almost no modulation, there are improbable changes: to a new key -- G minor — and a new meter -- 6/8. We’ve visited this world many times before. It brings images to mind musicians in frock coats, knee stockings and powdered wigs, a polite and ordered society. It’s the world of Haydn.

What happened to Chap’s ska tune? It’s still there but hidden, played pizzicato in the lower register by the cellos and basses.

But the main action here constitutes an homage to Haydn. Why Haydn?. Because he so effectively reconciled humor with nobility and surprise with architectural integrity. That’s what I’m trying to do in this concerto. The Haydn-esque section is both an homage and a joke but I don’t think Papa Haydn would be offended; no one loved a musical joke better than he.

About 3:24 the music picks up speed and starts to cook again. By 3:41 it’s really goin’ to town and sounds, to me, like a hit song from one of George M. Cohan’s old-fashioned Broadway musicals.

The tunes are developed and expanded and at 5:19 comes the movement’s climax, when the cello descends from a high A and lands in the unanticipated key of Eb major. This new key is the extreme opposite of A major, the key in which the movement and the entire concerto are cast.

This brief venture into Eb major reconciles the opposing extremes of the circle of fifths, echoing the reconciliation of musical styles and traditions that is attempted throughout. The chugging 16th-notes in the strings in this section always prompt me to imagine a little locomotive, flying down the tracks. For me, this section recalls the fun and silliness of Leroy Anderson’s wonderful little tone poems. You might call it “The Little Engine Who Could."

But the piece doesn’t end there. The moment for a big cello cadenza is prepared but the cellist abandons the attempt, playing instead a sort of “anti-cadenza.” Instead of a flashy virtuoso display, the cello simply plays a little figure on the A string with the open D string sounding underneath. The figure is short and it gets shorter each time the cellist repeats it, gradually releasing the energy that had nearly reached the bursting point; after our little locomotive just about burst its boiler, this "anti-cadenza" gradually lets the pressure escape.

Now comes one last quiet surprise: the tenderness of the cello. Using its delicate middle strings, the cello plays a plagal cadence, like the “Amen” at the end of a hymn, returning at last to the solemn, heartfelt hymnody that began the opening movement, twenty minutes earlier. The cello affirms: "Joyfulness can be funny, yes, even rambunctious … but also, at the end of the day, joyfulness comes in response to the Sacred."

All the opposites presented in the work -- opposites of mood, style, key, genre, the clash of the solo cello and his rival, the clarinet -- are reconciled at last and the concerto ends in quiet dignity.

To hear the final movement of my Concerto for Cello with Strings & Clarinet, performed by cellist Kalin Ivanov, clarinetist Jonathan Jones and the strings of the Las Colinas Symphony Orchestra under Maciej Zoltowski, click on the link above.

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

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
Apr. 24, 2016

🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶

After several years of gentle pestering, the Bulgarian-American cellist Kalin Ivanov finally convinced me, by dangling the prospect of a premiere performance in Carnegie Hall, to write a concerto for him. True to his word, he premiered the work in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall and he has performed the piece many times since.

He recently sent me a marvelous recording of his performance with the Las Colinas Symphony, a Dallas-area orchestra. I’m eager for you to hear all four movements, but . let’s listen to the first movement today.

Kalin and I talked at length about the piece before any notes were written down. We agreed it should be tuneful, tonal, accessible. Born in Bulgaria, now a new American citizen, Kalin wanted a piece that would bridge the two cultures, combining European and American musical gestures.

What is more American-sounding than a folk hymn? The concerto begins quietly, with the cello playing an original folk hymn, all the way through, all by himself. Then the clarinet plays it, the cello in canon right behind, with the strings plucking a tentative accompaniment. Eight minutes later, after a tumble of fugues, the hymn returns at the end of the movement, played in rich harmonies by the entire ensemble.

What is more European-sounding than a fugue? Between the opening statements of the hymn and the return of the hymn at the end, come two fugues, both derived from the second line of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” The subject is derived from the notes we sing with the words, “Buy me some peanuts and crackerjack.” It’s disguised a bit, so listen carefully at 2:02 and see if you can spot that fragment. The fugues climax at 6:20 with a quotation of the ending of that beloved song: “For it’s one, two, three strikes you’re out at the old ball game.” it’s slightly altered and it goes by quickly. So listen carefully!

I remember my grandmother Kate Hoff, my Nana, singing that song with gusto … and she and my grandfather were both born in Serbia, not far from Bulgaria. Arriving in Ohio as immigrant children, they were intensely proud to be Americans, eager to embrace the culture of their adopted homeland, a homeland that, they felt, had adopted them. Remembering this, I am pained by the anti-immigrant rhetoric we hear so often today. My experience of immigrants is personal; I think of my grandparents and what they brought to this country.

In between the two fugues, at 5:30, comes another folk hymn, contrasting with the opening one, and very sweet. The fugues end with the cello’s cadenza, a bridge back to the hymn tune that began the movement.

You’ll notice that the clarinetist is the cellist’s rival, competing for the spotlight usually reserved, exclusively, for the concerto's soloist. This is yet another metaphor. The clarinet is the outsider, a minority of one, a wind instrument, dull black with silver keys, while all the other instruments are made of strings and shining, varnished wood. Like any minority worth its salt, the clarinet brings richness, color and diversity to the whole.

The movement is entitled “Hymns and Fugues.” It juxtaposes and, for me at least, reconciles the very different musical gestures of the American and European traditions.

To hear the opening movement of my Concerto for Cello with Strings & Clarinet, performed by cellist Kalin Ivanov, clarinetist Jonathan Jones and the strings of the Las Colinas Symphony Orchestra under Maciej Zoltowski, click on the link above.

To see a PDF of a cello/clarinet/piano reduction of the score, click on the link above.

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
Feb. 21, 2016

🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶

Awhile back, when I was railing against the term “classical music,” one of you kindly replied to suggest I should instead use the word “classycal."

I like the coined word “classycal” even though it’s too cute for practical purposes. I like the flippant hint of caution against trying too hard to be “classy.” I like the gentle mockery of the term “classical”, which, like “fine arts," could do with a bit of gentle mocking.

Which in turn reminds me of the humorous, wise quip attributed to Fats Waller:

“Some people got more class than what’s good for ‘em,” Fats said, "but the rest ain’t got no class at all.”

All told, I’d rather be among those in the former category.

Fats was black. Me, I’m a white guy. I like plain yogurt, Basmati rice and mayonnaise. I put miniature marshmallows on top of my Cream of Wheat. That is something that white people do. (I’m joking, just so you know.)

I have a deep admiration for what African-Americans have achieved, musically and otherwise. In our shared American history, Louis Armstrong is among the Americans I most admire. An America devoid of the cultural contributions of African-Americans would be vastly diminished, unimaginable.

Gershwin knew this and it inspired him to write the greatest and most frequently performed American opera, “Porgy and Bess,” which begins with “Summertime,” one of Gershwin’s greatest tunes.

That opera is an ardent homage to African-American culture.

My own efforts to do the same don’t amount to much, not alongside those of Gershwin. But my attempts are no less sincere.

Vaughan Williams put it so well: “There can only be a few great composers, but there can be many sincere composers."

To hear one of my own homages to African-American culture, listen to the second movement, “Blues," of my Concerto for Cello with Strings & Clarinet, performed by cellist Kalin Ivanov, clarinetist Jonathan Jones and the strings of the Las Colinas Symphony Orchestra under Maciej Zoltowski, by clicking on the link above.

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

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
July 9, 2017

🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶

“Art is significance rendered with feeling through form.”
-- Will Durant

Significance, feeling and form. How does music offer these?

We sense significance in music when the composer and performer have ‘something to say’ that is substantive enough to reward careful listening. A piece of music is a contract, a promise. “Listen carefully,” say the composer and performer, “and you will be rewarded.”

Of what does this promised reward consist?

A reconciliation of opposites. When music reconciles opposites, we sense that something significant has happened. It brings us to what Yo-yo Ma has termed “a state of mind.” I’ll make bold to add to Mr. Ma’s phrase the old-fashioned word “ennobling.” When we experience a reconciliation of opposites in music, we are ennobled.

Some music induces states of mind that are dis-nobling, merely energizing. Monochrome music. No opposites, nothing to reconcile. The relentlessly unchanging beat of most pop music, for instance. Never the slightest “accelerando,” never a “ritard.” Thump-thump-thump, start to finish. How odd that music slavishly adherering to a proscribed tempo should be considered by so many to be an expression of rebellion, a way of “stickin’ it to the man.” To me, a relentless tempo seems authoritarian, fascistic.

Recently, Jo and I nearly joined the local community pool. Good thing we visited before buying our membership. Heavy rock music was blaring in all directions from large speakers high on the outside walls of the central snack bar. There was no escaping the music; it thumped into the furthest corners. I asked the manager if the music was ever turned off. She said, yes, during the ‘early swim’ from 6 am to 7 am. After that, the music plays until the pool closes at 9 pm. Fourteen hours of non-stop rock music. Seven days a week.

Evidently, the hundreds who enjoy the pool relish the energy of it. Hearing it, kids play harder, run faster, yell louder, splash more vigorously. All well and good. Kids need to get their energy out.

But it’s for not us. Reading and relaxing between dips in the pool would be impossible for us precisely because the “state of mind” induced by such music is unsettling, even dis-nobling.

I may be “impaired by snobbery,” but with regard to music, give me significance or give me silence.

Feeling in music is readily articulated. The claim that a piece of music is sad or happy or inspiring or tragic or serene or angry is easily understood. Feeling is the easiest aspect of music, easiest to convey, easiest to grasp. Many ask for little else; they want, expect and demand a bubble bath for the ears.

As to form, let me explain the structure of the first movement of my Concerto for Cello & Strings with Clarinet, titled “Hymns and Fugues.”

The solo cello opens with an original pentatonic hymn in the American folk hymn tradition; reminiscent of “Amazing Grace” or “Jerusalem, My Happy Home.” The opening is soulful, introspective, intimate. It differs sharply from the bravura with which the solo instrument is usually introduced in a concerto. A quiet, humble opening is unexpected, hinting at the coming surprises.

At :53 the clarinet takes up the hymn tune, the cello following a measure behind, in canon, while the strings thrum soft pizzicattos.

At 1:42 the cello concludes the opening hymn with a plagal cadence, the traditional “Amen.”

At 1:55 a vigorous fugue begins. The violins state the subject, which is the musical phrase that accompanies the words “buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks” in the well-known American song, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” I told you there would be surprises!

At 3:02, the little fugue is repeated.

At 4:00 a second fugue subject is sounded and is given a whirling development.

At 5:29 a second original hymn, rather English sounding, is introduced by the cello who inserts little figures between the hymn’s four phrases. Then the hymn is repeated by the whole ensemble, sans the cello’s little interruptions, as if agreement has been reached and the cello is keeping his mouth shut.

At 6:08 the first fugue subject returns and quickly finds its way to the music that accompanies the words “for it’s one! two! three strikes! you’re out! at the old ball game,” revealing the song from which the fugue subject was sourced. Listeners might say, “It sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it!”

After that climax, the music stops abruptly at 6:33. The cello offers a cadenza comprised of fragments of the opening hymn, gradually assembling these fragments until, at 7:40 a deeply felt recapitulation of the hymn is heard, followed by a quietly reverent coda, the “Amen” appearing in the clarinet this time.

Significance: The music reconciles opposites, aligning the sincerity of the hymn tunes at the beginning, the middle and the end, with the sardonic use of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” in the intervening fugues.

Form: Slow: Hymn A (heard twice, first by cello, then clarinet),
Fast: Fugue A (heard twice),
Fugue B,
Hymn B (heard twice),
return of Fugue A leads to the climax,
Freely: cello cadenza,
Slow: return of Hymn A with coda.

Reconciliation of opposing feelings: Earnest, heartfelt reverence vs. sarcastic, irreverent outpourings of energy. The sacred vs. the profane.

The composer and the performers made you a promise: “Listen carefully and you will be rewarded.”

Was the promise kept? Listen and decide.

To hear the opening movement of my Concerto for Cello with Strings & Clarinet, performed by cellist Kalin Ivanov, clarinetist Jonathan Jones and the strings of the Las Colinas Symphony Orchestra under Maciej Zoltowski, can be heard by click on the link above.

To see a PDF of a cello/clarinet/piano reduction of the score, click on the link above.

🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶

First, some joyful family news. Our daughter is engaged to marry her wonderful, long-time boy friend and our son made an astonishing leap to a new job, more than doubling his previous salary, doing work he absolutely loves and with people he deeply respects. Good news is rarely ‘gooder.’

Now, as Fareed Zakariah says every Sunday morning, “Let’s get started!”

Palate cleanser, defined: A neutral-flavored food or drink that removes food residue from the tongue allowing one to more accurately assess a new flavor.

Sorbet, for instance.

The tiny movement I aim to share with you today is titled “Sorbet” because it is intended to remove whatever musical residue may be lingering in the listener’s consciousness from having just heard the previous movement, allowing a more accurate assessment of the new musical flavor that will be offered in the movement that follows.

My Concerto for Cello & Strings with Clarinet is in four movements:

I. Hymns and Fugues
II. Blues
III. Sorbet
IV. Finale

The “Blues” movement is Gershwin-esque, heartfelt and mournful, beautiful but sad. The “Finale” movement is one of the zaniest things I’ve written.

I felt that the sharp contrast between the moods of the “Blues” and “Finale” movements presented listeners with a “brook too broad for leaping.” A brief intermezzo would serve as a “palate cleanser” between the two. Thus, the third movement, “Sorbet.”

How short can a piece of music be and still seem complete? It’s an interesting question. Beethoven, whose Eroica Symphony was the longest symphony yet written, also wrote a piano bagatelle that is only 19 seconds long. Clocking in at 65 second, my “Sorbet” movement is five times longer!

The solo clarinet begins and ends the movement with a scattering of sprightly staccatos. In between, the cello pirouettes above lush chords in the strings.

To hear “Sorbet,” the third movement of my Concerto for Cello & Strings with Clarinet, performed by cellist Kalin Ivanov, clarinetist Jonathan Jones and the strings of the Las Colinas Symphony Orchestra under Maciej Zoltowski, click on the link above.

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

🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶

Last week, I shared with you the tiny movement, just 65 seconds long, titled “Sorbet” from my Concerto for Cello & Strings with Clarinet. I explained that it is named that because I felt that the sharp contrast between the moods of the two movements that preceded and followed it constituted a “brook too broad for leaping.” A brief intermezzo would serve as a “palate cleanser” between the two and that the finale offered up some of the zaniest I’ve ever written.

Many of you replied, asking to hear that zany music. OK, pals, you asked for it!

the “Finale" movement of my concerto is indicated as "Tempo di Ska,” a style of fast popular music having a strong offbeat and originating in Jamaica in the 1960s, a forerunner of reggae.

The opening three measures establish the beat, the key and the character of the music. Then the solo cello renders the catchy tune.

Next, right quick, the clarinet plays the tune as a trickster might, ornamented and sassy, an octave higher than the cello’s rendering and with jazz, almost Klezmer inflections.

Thus, the clarinet immediately establishes itself as a rival to the cello, seemingly making a bid to turn the work into a double concerto for clarinet and celoo. It’s a theatrical device. In the rest of the movement, the clarinet sometimes steals the spotlight from the solo cello, other times supports the cello’s solo role. At still other times the clarinet retreats, offering only a pale color amid the strings sound.

It’s a metaphor. The clarinet is the piece’s only wind instrument and the only black instrument in the ensemble. All the others are string instruments, the color of varnished wood. Thus, the clarinet is the outsider — or is he?. It’s as if the clarinet is the Black man making his way in a context that is overwhelmingly white. Or a Jew making a life within Christendom. What is the difference between merely being present and truly belonging? What does it mean to belong? To have one’s contributions accepted and appreciated by the majority, wouldn’t you say?

Consider that Ska was created by Jamaicans, jazz and the Blues by African-Americans and Klezmer by Jews. Now comes our clarinet friend, in this concerto, evoking those idioms. See what’s happening? But, here, in this work, we find that the clarinet is NOT an outsider, not a “black sheep,” because in this work those ‘outsider’ minority musical traditions are reconciled with classical music traditions of Europe.

How? At 2:15, abruptly, unexpectedly we hear music in the manner of Haydn, the 18th-century Viennese Master. There are improbable changes, too: to a new key -- G minor — and a new meter -- 6/8. You and I have visited this world many times before. It is familiar and comfortable for us, perhaps moreso than Ska or Klezmer. It brings images to mind of musicians in frock coats, knee stockings and powdered wigs. Politically, it’s pre-democratic.

In short, this new music as different from what came before as I could make it.

What happened to the catchy Ska tune? It’s still there in this Haydnesque section! But you have to listen very carefully to hear it. It is hidden, played pizzicato in the lower register by the cellos and basses. (I wish the cellists and bassists had played it louder in this recording; as it is you really have to strain to hear it. Oh well.)

But the main action here constitutes an homage to Haydn. Why Haydn?. Because he so effectively reconciled humor with nobility and surprise with architectural integrity. That’s what I’m trying to do in this concerto. The Haydn-esque section is both an homage and a joke. I don’t think Papa Haydn would be offended; no one loved musical jokes more than he.

About 3:24 the music picks up speed and starts to cook again. By 3:41 it’s really goin’ to town and sounds, to me, like it might have been a hit song from one of George M. Cohan’s old-fashioned Broadway musicals.

The tunes are developed and expanded and at 5:19 comes the movement’s climax, when the cello descends from a high A and lands in the unanticipated key of Eb major. This new key is the extreme opposite of A major, as far away as one can get on the circle of fifths, the opposite side of music’s “color wheel,” the key in which the movement and the entire concerto are cast.

This brief venture into Eb major reconciles the opposing extremes of the circle of fifths, echoing the reconciliation of musical styles and traditions that is attempted throughout. The chugging 16th-notes in the strings in this section prompts me to imagine a little locomotive, flying down the tracks. For me, this section recalls the fun and silliness of Leroy Anderson’s wonderful little tone poems. You might call this section “The Little Engine Who Could."

That’s the climactic moment but the piece doesn’t end there. A flashy cello cadenza seems called for but -- in yet another surprise -- the cellist declines the opportunity, renders instead a sort of “anti-cadenza” consisting of a tiny figure on the A string with the open D string sounding underneath. The figure is shortened each time the cellist plays it. The energy that had nearly reached the bursting point is gradually released.

After the anti-cadenza, comes one last quiet surprise: the cello turns tender and intimate cello. Using its delicate middle strings, the cello offers a plagal cadence, like the “Amen” at the end of a hymn, returning at last to the solemn, heartfelt ‘hymn-mood’ that began the concerto, twenty minutes earlier. The cello affirms the notion that "yoyfulness can be funny, yes, even rambunctious … but also, at the end of the day, an expression of joy is also an expression of the Sacred."

All the opposites presented in the work -- opposites of mood, style, key, genre, the rivalry between the clarinet and the solo cello -- are reconciled at last and, after all the zaniness, the concerto ends -- surprise! -- in quiet dignity.
Taken altogether, this concerto may be the oddest piece of music I’ve written. Yet, I believe it is effective. It works for me.

I have made a transcription of this concerto that can be performed as a clarinet-cello-piano trio. If you would like to have the PDFs of the score and parts, just ask. Free, as with all my work.

To hear a zesty performance of the final movement of my Concerto for Cello with Strings & Clarinet by cellist Kalin Ivanov, clarinetist Jonathan Jones and the strings of the Las Colinas Symphony Orchestra under Maciej Zoltowski, click on the link above.

To see a PDF of the clarinet-cello-piano reduction of the full score, click on the link above.

🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶

We want to be happy, right? Why then are we drawn to sad music?

Catharsis ... “the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions.”

We prize certain music because it delivers that release. Many of us, pressed to name the music that has touched us most deeply, would name the saddest music we know.

When I hear sad music, I sometimes wonder, “Whose sadness is it?”

The obvious answer would seem to be: the music expresses the sadness of the composer. He or she wrote it, after all.

But I assure you that I have written sad music when I was happy and happy music when I was sad. I am not at all sure that the sadness heard in a piece of my music is MY sadness.

Then it must be the performer’s sadness, else how could they play so expressively?

I don’t think so. If the performer were really as sad as the music they are playing, they would not be able to play; they would be weeping too plentifully. The performer must be emotionally detached in order to meet the tremendous demands the score makes upon their attention, all those F sharps and B flats to be played perfectly and in the nick of time!

I think that when sad music is heard the sadness belongs to the listeners. They hear sad music “in the moment” and are rendered sad in that moment. They enter into a collective state of mind and, for a time, dwell there. When the music ends, the emotion they experienced only a moment before is now almost forgotten or rather remembered only in the way we remember our dreams.

I dream every time I sleep though I rarely remember my dreams. It doesn’t matter. I know that my dreams are doing what dreams are supposed to do: setting things right. In the same way, I know that sad music “sets things right” even if I cannot explain exactly how.

Movements I, III and IV of my “Concerto for Cello with Strings & Clarinet” are joyful and exuberant. The second movement is the sad one, titled “Blues.”

To hear the second movement, “Blues," of my Concerto for Cello with Strings & Clarinet, performed by cellist Kalin Ivanov, clarinetist Jonathan Jones and the strings of the Las Colinas Symphony Orchestra under Maciej Zoltowski, click on the link above.

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