Happy Easter! Happy Return of Spring! Happy Birth of Hope!

“The Birth of Hope” is the subtitle of my String Trio #5, composed last November. It began with a tiny idea that came to me in the early morning on the day after the election. I finished it, aptly, on Thanksgiving Day.

This morning, very shortly, you, the friends and fans who have kindly agreed to be the recipients of these weekly emails, will be the first to hear this newly composed music. All three movements!

The Cincinnati String Trio recorded it a few weeks ago as part of the large-scale project I have undertaken to co-produce, with Michael Ronstadt, SEVEN new albums that will feature much of my newest musical creations. Many of you generously contributed to that project a few months ago, generating a total of $12,000+, for which I warmly thank you.

(Contributions continue to arrive. Chip in, if you feel inclined. The total cost will be about $20,000, so I could still use some help. I’m a middle class guy, 75, for whom monthly Social Security payments are important.)

Here is the backstory on this new music and some thoughts on ‘what to listen for.’

I awoke on the morning after last November’s election with a motif playing in my head -- and I was “hearing” it, in my imagination, played by a cello! Just four notes in a minor key, dark but also urgent and restless. A four-note motif that wanted to grow, to go somewhere, to develop.

I jotted the notes on a little square piece of paper. For this purpose, I keep a dozen of these handy at my bedside, on my desk nearby, and in our car.

The motif grew into a beautiful movement, the second of the three movements that comprise this work. This second movement begins in despair, the four notes played by a solo cello, just as I “heard” them in my mind as I awoke. The other two instruments echo it and play tremolos that are menacing and mysterious.

You will realize after a time that you are hearing an introduction. It ends with all three instruments playing tremolos followed by four harsh, accented, dissonant chords.

Then, at 1:29, the violin plays a beautiful extension of the motif over soft syncopations and countermelodies in the other two instruments. The mood is tragic.

At 2:32, the cello takes up the tune while the other two play syncopations. But now the tune is slowly rising, the opposite of what happened just before. The violin takes it up again while the others make their bows “bite” into the strings.

At 3:25 the key moves for the first time into MAJOR. The moment when hope is born comes just after, when the viola takes up the tune, now inspiring and rising from despair into hope. When I hear Rose Gowda’s beautiful rendering of this moment tears comes to my eyes.

At 3:53, the violin picks it up, as if hope is contagious and is spreading. At 4:23 all three instruments play the figure in unison and then it grows even more from there.

The violin at 4:52 makes me think of the Holy Spirit hovering above us, an angel showering blessings. In January, the Cincinnati String Trio performed this movement in a service at my church, Mt. Auburn Presbyterian and it stirred us all.

But the hopefulness wavers and nearly falters with the return of tremolos. Then, there comes a sudden, unexpected shift to a new key and …

… at 6:12 the cello sounds a joyous fugue subject, a cheering variation on the four-note motif that opened the second movement. This unexpected burst of energy marks the beginning of the third movement! We are witnessing the transformation of Hope into Action!

The second and third movements, then, are played “attacca,” i.e., without a pause between them.

Why have I described the second and third movements before saying anything about the first movement? Because I want to show you how the piece evolved. When I finished what are now the second and third movements, I thought I had written the entire piece.

Then it seemed to me that there ought to come something BEFORE the cello sounds the despairing four notes that open the second movement.

Another movement was needed -- a FIRST movement to serve as a vivid contrast to what would follow in the second movement. I needed music to express the OPPOSITE of the content of the second and third movements, which is a deep despair, transforming hope, soaring spirits and a burst of energy. In other words, I wanted to offer music that would simply affirm the 98.6 degrees (normal) temperature of daily life.

My daily life is, all told, pretty happy. Oh, the clouds roll by, but the ‘scene’ is charming, all told, and I am charmed by it. I look round our house and think how lucky we are to live here and with someone we love. The first movement is charming, I think, in somewhat the same way as my everyday existence. It’s in a minor key, sure, but it is exuberant, even jolly.

The first movement PREPARES listeners for the second movement which in turn leads to the third. See?

This is some of my best music. I hope you enjoy discovering it. In a year or so, this recording will be on a CD / album along with other new music for strings.

To hear my String Trio #5: The Birth of Hope, movement 1 performed by the Cincinnati String Trio (violinist Doug Hamilton, violist Rose Gowda, cellist Michael Ronstadt), click on the link above. The PDF score of that movement is also linked.

A recording of the second and third movements, which are played without a break between them, is available in a separate link, and so is a score for those movements.

I'd love to know what you think about this music; reply if you're inclined. But please don't feel that you are expected to reply. I'm just glad to share my work in this way.

As always, feel free to forward this message to friends who might enjoy it.

Anyone can be on my little list of recipients for these mpFrees (as I call these musical emails). To sign up, people can email me at rick@sowash.com, sending just one word: "Yes." I'll know what it means.

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
Aprill 20, 2025