The person in my little circle of family, friends and acquaintances who understands me best is my son, Chapman. It’s been like that almost since he learned to talk. I never have to explain to him what I think or feel; he already knows.

We have a great deal in common and a few differences. I'm religious, he’s not. He has no religious practices, never prays so far as I know. He goes to church only when he's a paid soloist (trombone) or once in a while as a favor to me when one of my anthems is being performed in the service.

And yet …

A few years ago, I said to him, “You’re thirty years old. You’ve had some experience of Life. I’d like to ask you a question to which there are three possible responses. I’m curious to know which response you’d embrace.”

“OK,” he said, immediately intrigued, sensing Big Stuff.

“Do you believe,” I asked, “that, A, the universe is prejudiced against your development, actively opposing the flowering of your talents, stifling your efforts to fulfill your destiny by bringing your gifts to the wider world?

"Or … do you believe that, B, the universe is indifferent, neither opposing nor supporting your efforts?

"Or … do you believe that, C, the universe is prejudiced in favor of your development and actively assists and encourages your efforts, opening doors and seeing to it that one opportunity leads to the next?”

“I’ll go with the third option,” he said, immediately.

I nodded. “Then you have all the religion you’ll ever need.”

Embracing the third option is the essence of religion, it seems to me. The accoutrements — scriptures, steeples, sanctuaries, sacraments — are finnimbruns, finicky finnimbruns. Lovely, charming, stirring even -- but ancillary.

I love how Odell Shepard expresses this ’third option’ in his quiet book, The Cabin Down the Glen. He wrote the words below in the 1930’s. Can you look beyond the dated sexism of his pronouns to the era-transcending wisdom of his thought?

"The faith … has only one article in its creed: that there is an inexhaustible spring in the meadow of the world upon which we may draw for all that we need. There is some Power ... waiting to help, to cheer, and to guide us. I do not care to name it now, for all names are limitations, but I believe that each of the great worships of the world has been addressed to this Power, has been the rediscovery by some direct and penetrative mind of a truth that all right-living men have always dimly known. … Here is the tap-root of the tree of religion; from this all the pantheons have sprung. ... A man who has this faith has religion, no matter what may be his creed or his lack of one."

I’ve written a fair amount of sacred vocal music: hymns and anthems intended to be sung in worship services at my beloved Mt. Auburn Presbyterian Church, an enclave of progressive Christians, just a mile up the hill from my home in downtown Cincinnati. I know that my fellow congregants, most of whom receive these weekly emails, will embrace Mr. Shepard’s words. Maybe I will set those words to music and sing them in church sometime.

Yet some of my instrumental pieces are also charged with a feeling I'd term religious.

One such is the second of my Three Piquant Pieces for oboe & strings, titled simply, “Adagio."

To hear this “Adagio” beautifully played by oboist Amy Dennison, violinist Marion Peraza de Web, violist Katherine Cinelli and cellist Ellen Shertzer, click on the link above.

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

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
January 8, 2017

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A solo wind instrument heard over a ‘cushion’ of strings is, to me, the most appealing of all musical textures. Especially when the instrument is an oboe.

Ah, the oboe. That strange, lovely, piercing sound. Unlike the chameleon clarinet, which I adore, the oboe offers only one color but it is poignant and touches our hearts in a way that unique. Who can explain exactly why this particular sound appeals to us as much as it does? It’s a mystery. We only know it’s true.

I wrote “Three Piquant Pieces” for oboe and strings when I was 27, revising it when I was 41.

When I was young, indiscriminately in love with my own ideas, I jammed as many as possible into a piece of music. They were intriguing, but they were presented in a crowded jumble; they came at you, thick and fast.

Revising later, I expanded the space between the ideas so that they can breathe and be perceived more fully and clearly.

Here’s an example. Today’s mp3 begins with the oboe playing a melancholy, descending line during the first four measures. Then the oboe stops playing and the strings do a little rhythmical business before the oboe resumes

When I was 27, that tiny interlude of business in the strings wasn’t there. The oboe simply went right ahead, from the first to the second phrase. It was too much, too soon. I inserted that little ‘business’ in the strings very deliberately. They interrupt the oboe and comment on the opening phrase. See? That little interruption recurs, in the revised version, throughout the movement, each time allowing both the music, the listeners and the oboist to catch a breath.

Does this seem a tad clinical? Closer to surgery than artistry? Remember, revision is undertaken to enhance the emotional effect. This music is wistful, reflective, lovely but sad. Inserting those little interludes of rhythmical business makes it seem as if the oboe is a little hesitant and shy, a little reluctant to share her sorrow, perhaps afraid of being perceived as self-pitying.

Does that sound familiar? Are you like that? I am. When my friends ask how I’m doing, the easiest response is to put on a show of ebullience and, if I can, to say something funny in the hope of eliciting a smile or a laugh. I seldom share my sadness, isolation, or my fear of being discarded. And when I do, it doesn’t come out in a rush, but hesitantly, with pauses between sentences, like the oboe between phrases, as I grope for the words.

Revising isn’t cold and calculating. It renders the music more personal, more humane.

To hear the first movement, “Lento” from Three Piquant Pieces played by oboist Amy Dennison, violinist Marion Peraza de Web, violist Katherine Cinelli and cellist Ellen Shertzer, click on the link above.

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

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Soon after I returned from college to my home town of Mansfield, Ohio, in 1973, I befriended several local musicians who were willing to play the music I was writing. Oboist Carol Bernhardt and her husband, violinist Don Bernhardt, were very early fans of my work. I wrote my “Three Piquant Pieces” for oboe and strings as a gift for Carol and she played it enthusiastically.

Many years later, when we moved to Cincinnati, another oboist, Amy Dennison, championed my work, playing all of my oboe pieces in concert, some several times, always with expressive power and grace.

Amy even helped raise some of the money to fund the recording of the CD on which “Three Piquant Pieces” is featured, recruited the string players and generously declined compensation.

The first of the three pieces is a wistful waltz; the second is an expression of religious feeling. We'll share those another time. Today, we'll hear the comical third piece, mingling American musical gestures with those of eastern Europe.

Some listeners are surprised to discover that my music occasionally has an eastern European sound. I come by it naturally: my mother’s parents immigrated here from what is today Serbia, though they were German-speaking Austro-Hungarians, not Serbs, a distinction that was very important to them. I love Eastern European music: Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsody #1, gypsy music, the asymmetrical phrase lengths and rhythmic vitality of the folk music.

To hear the Rondo, third of the “Three Piquant Pieces,” performed by oboist Amy Dennison, violinist Marion Peraza de Web, violist Katherine Cinelli and cellist Ellen Shertzer, click on the link above.

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

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A few years ago, I said to our son, “You’re well into your thirties now. You’ve had some experience of Life. I’d like to ask you a classic question that has three possible responses. I’m curious to know which response you will make.”

“OK,” he said, intrigued, sensing Big Stuff in the offing.

“Do you believe,” I asked, “that, A, the universe is prejudiced against your development, actively opposing the flowering of your talents, stifling your efforts to bring your gifts to the wider world?

"Or … do you believe that, B, the universe is indifferent, neither opposing nor supporting your efforts?

"Or … do you believe that, C, the universe is prejudiced in favor of your development and actively assists and encourages your efforts, rooting for you to fulfill your destiny, opening doors so that one opportunity leads to the next?”

“I’ll go with the third option,” he said, immediately.

I nodded. “Then you are religious, no matter what may be your creed or your lack of one."

Embracing the third option is the essence of religion, it seems to me. The accoutrements — scriptures, sacraments, sanctuaries, steeples — are finnimbruns. Lovely, charming, inspiring -- but mere finnimbruns nevertheless.

I love how Odell Shepard expresses the ’third option’ in his quiet book, The Cabin Down the Glen:

"There is an inexhaustible spring in the meadow of the world upon which we may draw for all that we need. There is some Power ... waiting to help, to cheer, and to guide us. I do not care to name it now, for all names are limitations, but I believe that each of the great worships of the world has been addressed to this Power, has been the rediscovery by some direct and penetrative mind of a truth that all who live rightly have always dimly known. … Here is the tap-root of the tree of religion; from this all the pantheons have sprung.”

Customarily, religious or ’sacred’ music is choral. I’ve written many hymns and anthems that have been sung in worship services. Yet some of my instrumental pieces are also charged with a feeling I'd term religious.

One such is the second of my Three Piquant Pieces for Oboe & Strings, titled simply, “Adagio."

To hear this “Adagio” beautifully played by oboist Amy Dennison, violinist Marion Peraza de Web, violist Katherine Cinelli and cellist Ellen Shertzer, click on the link above.

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