How best to praise a superb musician?

It’s not so easy.

One could say: “You play like an angel ... such depth and expressivity … and your tone is lovely.”

Nothing wrong with that. But it falls far short of what wants saying.

After all, this musician has just done a miraculous thing: bringing us, by playing a musical instrument they have brought us to a rarified state of mind which we didn’t know existed, could never find on our own and to which we cannot return at will.

It’s the strangest thing. While the music is being played, our minds are pulled to places that are not of our choosing. We surrender our authority over our own state of being, dominion over our own consciousness ... and allow our minds to be “played” in almost the same way as a musician “plays” their instrument.

When the piece is over, when the music stops, it is as if something physical has been removed from the room. It is as if the sun has slipped behind a dark cloud, altering Light itself.

Musicians are wizards. How best to praise a wizard?

After hearing my friend Michael Ronstadt play, his cello, I was so excited I had to say something. I found myself blurting out a curious compliment.

It happened that I had recently been re-reading “The Lord of the Rings.” I approached Michael, shook his hand and, found myself saying, “If Gandalf played the cello, he would sound like you.”

Michael laughed. “I’ve never gotten a compliment like that before!”

That brief conversational exchange got me thinking, asking myself, “What if Gandalf DID pick up a cello and play it? What would it sound like? What notes would he play?”

Questions like that get my creative juices flowing.

I pictured Gandalf visiting Bag End, Bilbo’s home in the Shire. After tea and biscuits and the friendly, easy chat friends enjoy, the wizard turns his gaze to a dusty cello leaning against the wall, the bow alongside. He rises his chairs at Bilbo’s dining table, takes the instrument in hand, picks up the bow and returns to his chair.

“I didn’t know you played the cello,” says Bilbo.

Gandalf’s reply is not verbal; it is musical. He draws the bow across the cello’s strings. Bilbo, instantly enchanted, rushes over to his miniature Hobbit-sized spinet, seats himself on the little bench that goes with the spinet and improvises an accompaniment.

What would Gandalf play? Not the Bach cello suites or Casal’s “Song of the Birds” or Saint Saens’ “The Swan.”

Gandalf would play something of his own invention.

What -- exactly? It was up to me to discover that and notate it. I got to work.

It had to be in the key of F sharp minor and leaning into the Dorian mode. Why? Because that key is like Gandalf … stern yet kindly, harsh yet tender. Sad perhaps but in sad in a way that affirms the goodness of life, of being alive. The Dorian mode is like that. Sad but hopeful because of the raised sixth. (Forgive me for getting technical; composers love stuff like that; for most people any talk of Music Theory makes their eyes glaze over.)

I wrote a piece to answer my own question, finished it exactly one year ago and titled “If Gandalf Played the Cello.”

The opening is marked “stern and mysterious.” At 2:44 comes a new theme marked “fond of Hobbits.”

At 5:30 the music return to the minor key, the stern and mysterious Gandalf, though the “fond of Hobbits” theme winds its way alongside.

At 7:17 the score is marked “a vision of better days ahead.” Gandalf never loses sight of a better world. Nor should we.

The ending is marked “Farewell.” When Gandalf’s work is done, he steps back, goes to see Tom Bombadil and then leave of his Hobbit friends and leaves, never to be seen again on this side of the Gray Havens.

This new piece was recorded just last month; you are the first to hear it. It will be featured on a new CD of my music titled “Ronstadt Plays Sowash, Volume Two,” due for release late this year. The piece is dedicated to Michael Ronstadt.

To hear “If Gandalf Played the Cello” performed by cellist Michael Ronstadt and pianist Brian Cashwell, click on the link above. There's also a link to a PDF of the score.

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
May 3, 2026
www.sowash.com