[In the] northwest corner of our lower garden … the fabled “Blue Rock” keeps sentinel, mounted on an antique chimney pot which I painted green.

We use the word “fabled” loosely. But that blue rock actually IS “fabled” in so far as it is the title and subject of a book of fables about it. To wit, my book, “The Blue Rock.”

Somewhere I came upon a little phrase “the greening o’ the year,” a descriptive name for Spring, this fabled season we are in. The phrase stayed with me and when a rather Celtic-sounding hymn-like tune took shape in my consciousness, I employed it as a title because the tune seemed to match the phrase.

I wrote the piece for flute, oboe and piano so as to provide two young friends -- flutist Julie Morris and oboist Yo Shionoya -- with a piece they could play in church sometime with my pianist friend Beth Troendly. (There is no one on the planet, by the way, who has performed more of my music nor more beautifully than Beth Troendly.)

Our Minister of Music Chris Miller scheduled the piece -- aptly -- for mid-April, just when the year is, in fact, “greening” in Cincinnati; it was performed in the service last Sunday.

The flute and oboe play mostly longer notes while the piano busily burgeons beneath them, which prompted Chris, as he told me afterwards, to ponder, as he put it, “the fecundity of Nature.”

There is a contrasting middle section marked “thoughts of love,” featuring an oboe solo and in a new key. After all, Romantic love is part of Spring, too.

Today, you can both hear AND SEE the premiere performance. It requires just a little effort on your part. When you go to the link [I’ve shared below], you’ll find you’ve arrived at a video of our service from last week. Move your device ahead to 51:12. You’ll come in just as I am introducing the piece.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxV8h-HZgDc

There’s also a link to a PDF of the score, above.