News!

After 21 years of living in the heart of Cincinnati, we have bought a house in the semi-countryside between Mariemont and Newtown, just east of Cincinnati, about 15 min. from downtown.

It’s a classic Federalist home, built in 1830 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It’s lovely!

Photos of the house, exterior and interior, can be seen here:

https://www.redfin.com/OH/Cincinnati/6836-School-St-45244/home/63720744

This house feels deeply right to us because it is so like the house we inhabited back in Gambier, Ohio. The happiest years of our 46-year marriage (and counting) were the six years we passed in Gambier. Home to Kenyon College, Gambier looks and feels like rural Connecticut, which we love.

We left Gambier with a reluctant farewell. Our years there had coincided with the era in our lives "when the kids were little” and we knew we’d never return to that time or place. We love Cincinnati, truly we do. But we think of Gambier as ‘the good old days.'

Last month, when we first walked through the front door of what is to be our ’new’ home, we felt we’d come home.

Living our final decades in a house so similar to the one in which our kids passed their golden elementary school years will make a beautiful symmetry for us. The ’new' property feels like a reward at the end of our long adventure as a couple and as co-founders of a little family. A happy ending. It will be our own little Monticello.

We will cherish the quiet location, the exposed beams, the hardwood floors and paneling, the fireplaces, the big, old trees in the yard, being able to see more stars at night. Inspiring!

Too, the Shaker furniture and the cherry / walnut Ohio country antiques of the 1840’s and 1850’s that we've lovingly collected for 46 years will suit that house perfectly. There will be ample room for Jo to display her collections of red ware, flow blue and bird carvings. She is visibly a-fizz with excitement. When she’s through decorating, we’ll be living in what might be termed The Sowash Collection of American Folk Art.

There are practical advantages, too: the house has few stair steps, rendering access easier for us as we accommodate our eventual, inevitable enfeeblement. The yard is small; there will be few leaves to rake but plenty of sunshine for the day lilies we’ll plant.

We will miss being near to all that downtown Cincinnati has to offer: the main library, Avril’s butcher shop, Allez bakery, Findlay Market, Music Hall, the Art Museum and the restaurants. We’ve treasured living only two minutes drive from our church. (It’s been so easy to dash back home when I’ve forgotten to bring something I was supposed to bring, absent-minded artiste that I am.)

We’ve lived happily in our apartment building and we’ll leave it, too, with a reluctant farewell (though we’ll welcome the rental income that will be forthcoming from the apartment we’re no longer occupying).

Speaking of reluctant farewells, "Reluctant Farewell” is the title of a piece I wrote a few years ago for solo guitar, the most intimate of musical instruments.

To hear “Reluctant Farewell,” played with great feeling and sensitivity by the Seattle-based virtuoso Hilary Field, click on the link above.

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

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Not every time, but often, after I have stepped onto an elevator and pushed the button for the floor to which I wish to ascend, I remark to my fellow passengers in a deadpan tone, “Riding an elevator can be an uplifting experience.”

Depending on their response, if any, I add, “Other times it can let you down.”

If they look at each other with raised eyebrows, I conclude, “But in any case, it takes you to a whole new level.”

Puzzled little smiles ensue.

I aspire to be a generator of smiles. They can be bidden with vapid jokes, like those above, which are funny not because they are actually funny but because a grown man has just demonstrated that he is sufficiently silly to utter them to strangers in an elevator.

I know dozens of poems, hundreds of jokes, and a thousand turns of phrase. Given the right circumstance, I trot them out at a moment’s notice.

There was a young poet named Wyatt
Whose voice was exceedingly quiet,
‘Til one fine day,
It faded away.

Humor is one way of eliciting smiles. Compliments are another. Using a person’s name when we greet them, just that alone, often prompts a smile.

Music, too, can cause smiles. Peter Schickele’s P.D.Q. Bach pieces, for instance, or the arrangements of Spike Jones.

Too, there is the dry humor of musical irony to be found in some of the works of Prokofiev, Shostakovich and our great American composer Charles Ives.

Not all smiles arise from humor. There are many kinds of smiles and some of them are wistful. There is such a thing as a sad smile.

When I wrote “Reluctant Farewell” for solo guitar, I deliberately tried to bring listeners to the particular state of mind that calls forth a sad smile. Memory and intimacy are involved, as when we think of departed loved ones or recall ourselves when we were innocent and young, when we thought we were being clever and recited elevator jokes to strangers.

The guitar is best suited, it seems to me, to convey, intimately, the pensive mood of the sad smile.

To hear “Reluctant Farewell,” played with great feeling and sensitivity by the Seattle-based virtuoso Hilary Field, click on the link above.

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

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Do not be alarmed by the title of the piece of music I hope to share today:

“Reluctant Farewell.”

I am not saying goodbye to you; this is not my last Sunday morning email. Far from it. There is so much yet to share!

The title begs the question, “To whom or what is the reluctant farewell addressed?” Listeners would naturally assume that the composer had in mind some specific departure, a last kiss, the death of a loved one.

Disabuse yourself of this notion! Such was not the case! In that respect, this is a work of fiction.

Still, why such a title, why such a piece?

I wrote it at the request of my good friend Randy Wright, an amateur guitarist who particularly cherishes music that is intimate and, yes, melancholy. Thus, the mood of the piece, thus the title.

The work attempts to convey what a reluctant farewell, expressed musically, might sound like. It’s the same as an author imagining a death scene but without depicting the death of any actual person. This is what fiction writers do. And sometimes, this is what composers do, too.

The result is not insincere. Far from it. Fiction writers sometimes touch our hearts. I was moved to genuine, salty tears by certain passages in Marjorie Kinnan Rawlins’ beautiful novel, “The Yearling.” The extent to which the story expresses actual events is beside the point. Who cares if the story is “true” or not?

It was through Randy Wright’s connections that the great guitarist Hilary Field was induced to record the piece. Given the title, it is not surprising that she made it the last track -- the farewell track -- on her CD premiering new music for solo guitar.

In the liner notes, she mentioned that I was the only composer whose music is featured on the CD who does not play the guitar.

Most of the music composed for the instrument is by people who play it. I think it has to be that way because writing for guitar is a very tricky business. You have to make sure that the notes do not get in the way of one another. Two separate notes cannot be played on the same string at the same time. And the guitarist’s hand can stretch only so far. Ignore these limitations and the result will be unplayable.

Even after I had done my best, considerable editing was needed to make the music “lie well” for the guitarist’s hands … for which I thank Randy and Ms. Field.

The end result is very beautiful … to my ear at least and hopefully to yours.

Of course, we are now bidding farewell to the year 2024 -- which is why I chose to share the piece on this particular day. Even that, however, is fiction. In truth, I am not reluctant to bid farewell to 2024. I say, “Let it go! Here’s to better days yet to come!” And that is non-fiction!

With that, I reluctantly bid you farewell until next Sunday morning!

To hear “Reluctant Farewell,” played with great feeling and sensitivity by the Seattle-based guitar virtuoso Hilary Field, click on the link above.

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