French pianist Jean Tatu is a friend and fan. He performed with “les Gavottes”, the Riviera-based trio that recorded my first three trios for clarinet, cello and piano, written specifically for the group.

I sent Jean my works for solo keyboard, including “Pensée," the earliest piece of my music which I still value, written in 1968, when I was 18 years old.

Today, what is surprises me about this little piece is the extent to which it shows that I was already so completely myself when I wrote it. When you listen, I think you’ll agree. You’ll think, “Yes, this sounds like something R.S. would write."

My high school music teachers taught me 90% of what I needed to know about music in order to do my life’s work. During my college years I tried, unsuccessfully, to find a middle ground between who I really was, musically, and the composer the faculty at the illustrious School of Music I attended seemed to want me to be. The implication was that if I didn’t cave in and write avant garde music, I could not have a career. But I was not cut out to be an avant garde composer. Musically, I was always a Conservative. “Derrière garde,” yes. Avant garde, no.

Happily, after graduating, I recovered my authentic voice.

I named this piece “Pensée” because it means “a thought” in French. This is humorous because, at that time, my relationship with the French language had been a disaster. At the time I wrote the piece, I had had one year of high school French and had bombed badly, earning the only “D” of my academic career. I was too busy writing music and fiction to bother learning French.

All the same, teenager that I was, I thought the title “Pensée” would sound intelligent, worldly and high-falutin’. When I was 18 I never dreamed I would soon return to studying French again — with seriousness this time -- let alone that I would someday teach French (as I have been doing very happily for the past two years).

Yet the title is apt. This IS a thoughtful piece. Especially the way Jean Tatu plays it. His rendering is tender and simple. I love to watch him play in the Youtube he kindly sent me, especially the way he lifts his hands from the keyboard after sounding the last chord. It reminds me that music-making is a thing we can relish visually as well as aurally. That reverent, poetical gesture reveals the love Jean has for his instrument and for Music.

To hear Jean Tatu playing “Pensée” for solo piano, click on the link above.

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

To both see and hear Jean Tatu playing “Pensée, go to this youTube website:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqMX6bBu1Zw

What times we live in when sharing such things is this easy!

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
April 3, 2016

🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶

2020 sucks eggs. Let’s escape to the far away and long ago.

One day back in 1968, when I was 18 years old, fooling around at the piano, I suddenly discovered the first four chords of the piece. I saw where those chords were pointing and I let the piece unfold, let the music go where it wanted to go. It was one of those rare occasions when a piece fell on me out the blue, almost writing itself.

Today, what surprises me about this little piece is the extent to which it shows that I was already so completely and thoroughly my mature self when I wrote it. Listen and you’ll agree: “Yes, this sounds like something R.S. would write.”

... The music sounds French, a little like the simpler movements of Ravel’s “Mother Goose Suite” for piano four hands. ... If you’re a pianist, print it and play it.

What times we live in! There is much to curse in the present moment, but at 18, I never dreamed that a time would come when sharing music with friends could be this easy! A single click and there it is: a French friend 5,000 miles away playing music I wrote 52 years ago.