When April arrives, we say, “At last!”

Here is one small way to celebrate. Listen the opening movement of my Trio #2 for clarinet, cello and piano. It’s the second of thirteen trios I wrote for three French musicians who call themselves "les Gavottes." I entitled the trio "Enchantement d'avril" (Enchantment of April) because the movements are expansions of songs I had written earlier, setting to music a scene from Elizabeth von Arnim's novel, "The Enchanted April."

You probably haven't read the novel; it's not very well known; but you may remember the 1993 film Enchanted April, based on the novel. It's one of my favorites.

If you haven't read the book or seen the film, well, you certainly know what April is about.

April is majestic and miraculous, a kingly re-birth, a meteorological High Renaissance. Accordingly, the movement begins (and ends) with a majestic fanfare; then a rising, trilling clarinet bridges us to a livelier music, though contemplative and pastoral. Think of this music as a painting, a landscape; soft sheets of gray rain slant across the greening, breeze-tossed branches of trees; clusters of daffodils, gloriously white and yellow, dapple the foreground.

The music is in B flat major. How could it not be? Such a bright and brassy yellow key!
with glimmering highlights of purest white. At least that's how B flat major seems to me.

Yes, I'm one of those for whom keys have colors -- except for C major, which is colorless, clear. F major is pale green. G major is Kelly green. E major is bright red. A major is pale orange while F sharp minor is a gnarled brown. E flat major is bright blue while E flat minor is deep indigo. A flat major is purple, F minor even moreso. And so on ....

Here then is my April music, cast in B flat major.

To hear "les Gavottes" play the opening movement of Trio #2 “Enchantment of April,” click on the link above.

You can see a PDF of the score by clicking on the link above.

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
April 6, 2014

🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶

Listen to the closing movement of my Trio #2 for clarinet, cello and piano, “Enchantment of April.”

Written specifically for three French musicians who call themselves "les Gavottes,” the music was intended to have a French inflection. I think it could serve as the film score for one of those sweet, little French movies, shot in Paris, about shy people falling in love.

Interestingly, les Gavottes took to this music because, they told me, it sounded so American! I remember Lucien, the clarinetist, saying, as we listened to their recording of the work, “This part always makes me think of the American West!”, pantomiming a galloping cowboy, reins in one hand, waving an imaginary hat with the other. I laughed with him, but what I hear is the French influence. I guess the music is best described as Franco-American.

I fell in love with the French language when I was 20, the result of an intense, summer-long affair — a ten-week immersion course at Ohio State University.

Like any twenty-something, I yearned to visit Paris. But as the years passed, other priorities forestalled the dream. College, career, children, mortgage payments, the usual stuff.

Then one day (as storytellers say), I received a letter from a Parisian clarinetist, Jean-Noel Martin, requesting the sheet music for works he’d heard on a CD recording of my music which he’d found at a Paris record store. Remember record stores?

I sent him the scores for free and we became pen-pals. I'd write to him in French; he'd reply in English, both of us practicing our second languages. This was before e-mail. Remember letters?

After two years he invited me to come over. I was thrilled! Jean-Noel met me at Charles DeGaulle airport and squired me back to his tiny apartment to show me how things worked there. He moved out, lodged with a friend during my eleven-day visit, letting me use his flat. All for free. Un vrai ami!

His apartment was tiny; the bed occupied two-thirds of the floor space. It was on the fifth floor of one of those classic old Parisian apartment buildings. There was no elevator. The toilet-closet was down the hall, shared with the floor’s other tenants. The hallway light switch was timed to turn itself off after 90 seconds; unless you could find a light switch again, you made the return journey from the toilet-closet in pitch darkness.

The apartment had a tiny sink, a two-burner hot plate, a refrigerator the size of a waste-basket, a tiny desk, and book shelves on every inch of the walls. Its one window, viewless, looked out only upon the building’s opposite wing. I loved everything about it!

I didn’t see much of Jean-Noel after the first day; he had his job, lessons to teach, rehearsals to attend. In two or three brief rendezvous, he gave me written lists of suggested activities and sites to visit with directions, things to seek out, notice, appreciate.

Every day, I walked and walked and walked, exploring as many neighborhoods as possible. I was 41 by that time, but in good shape. Even so, there were afternoons when my tired legs forced me back to the apartment, just to put up my feet and rest, poring over guide books the while.

Paris was marvelous, exhilarating. The architecture, cafés, parks, museums, monuments, people, the Métro, the beautiful language. Things ‘clicked’ for me, dozens of times, every day. I stumbled upon a street named the Rue Nicot. A little sign explained that it was named for Jean Nicot who introduced tobacco to the French, presenting it to the queen mother, Catherine de Medici, a cure for her migraines. Fashionable people took up the practice and Nicot became a celebrity. Thus originated the word ... “nicotine.”

I’ve always hated smoking, but this was fascinating. it’s one example of how my understanding of things large and small was expanded by a myriad of minute discoveries made daily in Paris.

I became obsessed with a desire to return … and I’ve managed to get back to France seven times since that first visit in 1991. Sometimes alone, sometimes with wife and children, sometimes with friends.

La Belle France has enriched my life, immensely. And inspired me, too.

Perhaps my affection and gratitude is expressed in this Franco-American music. See what you think.

To hear les Gavottes’ exquisite rendering of the third movement from my Trio #2 for clarinet, cello and piano, “Enchantment of April,” click on the link above.

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

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
April 10, 2016

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Are not dreams far and away the strangest things in our lives?

Every night I have extraordinary dreams. Upon waking, I remember little about them but I know that they have done their work. They have re-knitted my consciousness, presented my waking mind with a refreshed perspective. They have assured me that I am loved, that there is a Force at work that cares about me, keeps me balanced.

Often, I dream of rain. The kids are little again and we're back in our house in Gambier, where we lived from 1988 to 1994, the happiest period of our lives (though our present life is a close second). It’s very good to be there but it is raining and water is coming through the ceiling of a room I rarely visit. (it’s not a real room; it exists only in my dream; it was not an actual room in our Gambier house.)

The room contains thousands of books on shelves and on display, as in a public library or bookstore. They are books which I seem to own but which have not yet read. I look at the covers, the titles, the authors’ names and I am intrigued. I want to read these books!

I am anxious to know if the books are being damaged by the incoming rain water. Perhaps they are, perhaps they are not. It’s never clear. Then I awake, unsure whether it was a good dream or a bad dream, but relieved to know that, either way, that “it was all just a dream.”

Something of the spirit of this recurring dream is captured in Walter de la Mare’s lovely, mysterious poem, “Rain.”

I woke in the swimming dark
And heard, now sweet, now shrill,
The voice of the rain-water,
Cold and still,

Endlessly sing; now faint,
In the distance borne away;
Now in the air float near,
But nowhere stay;

Singing I know not what,
Echoing on and on;
Following me in sleep,
Till night was gone.

I set these lovely words to music for mezzo Diane Haslam plus a flute and a piano. She sang it so beautifully; alas, we never recorded her rendition.

To hear another fine mezzo, Susan Olson, singing “Rain" from Silvery Songs (I regret I did not note the names of the flutist or pianist who performed with her and so cannot acknowledge them), click on the link above.

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

Later, I expanded this song into the opening movement of my Trio #2 for clarinet, cello and piano, “Enchanted April."

To hear "les Gavottes" play the opening movement of Trio #2 “Enchantment of April,” click on the link above.

You can see a PDF of the score by clicking on the link above.

🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶

At long last ... April!

Here is one small way to celebrate. Listen the opening movement of my 'April' Trio #2 for clarinet, cello and piano.

I wrote it for three French musicians who call themselves "les Gavottes.”
I entitled the trio "Enchantement d'avril" (Enchantment of April) because the movements are expansions of songs I had written earlier, setting to music a scene from Elizabeth von Arnim's novel, "The Enchanted April."

You probably haven't read the novel; it's not very well known; but you may remember the film Enchanted April, based on the novel. I dearly love the film; it's my favorite movie. Along with a half dozen others. It’s a story of four women transforming to their better selves.

And it has a beautiful score by the British composer Richard Rodney Bennett. You can hear a suite derived from the score here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCDrLlua6cY

I love to visit this site and play the recording while I’m cooking.

I am pressing this film on you, warmly. You really ought to watch it sometime. And what better time than now, when there is so much to dread. I’m pretty sure it can be found on Netflix or somewhere like that.

You don’t have to read the book or see the film to know what April is about.

April is majestic and miraculous, a grand re-birth, a high renaissance. Accordingly, the first movement of my trio begins (and ends) with a quietly majestic fanfare; then a rising, trilling clarinet bridges us to a music that is livelier, though still contemplative and pastoral.

This music is painting a landscape; soft sheets of gray rain slant across the greening, breeze-tossed branches of trees; clusters of daffodils, gloriously white and yellow, dapple the foreground.

The music is in B flat major. How could it not be? Such a bright and brassy key, gleaming yellow with glimmerings of purest white. At least that's how I hear it.

Yes, I'm one of those for whom keys are associated with colors. C major is clear. F major is pale green. G major is Kelly green. E major is bright red. A major is pale orange while F sharp minor is a gnarled brown. E flat major is bright blue while E flat minor is deep indigo. A flat major is purple, F minor even moreso. D flat major is the color of irises. And so on ....

Here then is my April music, scored in B flat major.

To hear "les Gavottes" play the opening movement of Trio #2 “Enchantment of April,” click on the link above.

You can see a PDF of the score by clicking on the link above.

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 should email me at rick@sowash.com, sending just one word: "Yes." I'll know what it means. To unsubscribe, reply “unsubscribe.”

Thanks for your interest in my music and my curious career. It means a great deal to me, more than you might think, especially now, in this dark time. If no one took an interest, my life's work would be pointless, an unending winter. Did you know? You are my April!

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
April 3, 2020

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Hello —

from the novel, "The Enchanted April," p. 64-66, by Elizabeth Von Arnim:

"When Mrs. Wilkins woke next morning she lay in bed a few minutes before getting up and opening the shutters. What would she see out of her window? A shining world, or a world of rain? But it would be beautiful; whatever it was would be beautiful.

She lay putting off the great moment of going to the window as one puts off opening a precious letter, gloating over it. She had no idea what time it was. No sounds were to be heard in the house, so she supposed it was very early, yet she felt as if she had slept a long while -- so completely rested, so perfectly content. She lay with her arms clasped round her head thinking how happy she was, her lips curved upwards in a delighted smile. In bed by herself -- adorable condition. The cool roominess of it, the freedom of one’s movements, the sense of recklessness, of audacity, in giving the blankets a pull if one wanted to, or twitching the pillows more comfortable! It was like the discovery of an entirely new joy.

Mrs. Wilkins longed to get up and open the shutters, but where she was was really so very delicious. She gave a sigh of contentment, and went on lying there looking round her, taking in everything in her room, her own little room, her very own to arrange just as she pleased.

Well, this was delicious, to lie there thinking how happy she was, but outside those shutters it was more delicious still. She jumped up, pulled on her slippers, ran to the windows and threw open the shutters.

“Oh!” cried Mrs. Wilkins.

All the radiance of April in Italy lay gathered together at her feet. The sun poured in on her. The sea lay asleep in it, hardly stirring. Across the bay the lovely mountains, exquisitely different in color, were asleep too in the light, and underneath her window, the bottom of the flower-starred grass slope, from which the wall of the castle sprung up, was a great cypress, cutting through the delicate blues and violets and rose colors of the mountains and the sea.

She stared. Such beauty and she there to see it. Such beauty and she alive to feel it. Her face was bathed in light. How beautiful, how beautiful. Not to have died before this. To have been allowed to see, breathe, feel this. She stared, her lips parted. Happy? Poor, ordinary, everyday word. But what could she say, how could one describe it? It was as though she could hardly stay inside herself, it was as though she were too small to hold so much of joy, it was as though she were washed through with light.”

I set to music the words of that last paragraph, making them into a song for mezzo Diane Haslam to sing. And did she ever. Gorgeous! She melted our hearts. I sigh, remembering that performance.

Later, I expanded the song into the slow movement of my second clarinet/cello/piano trio, written for my French musician friends Lucien Aubert, Francois Adloff and Jean Tatu, who called their trio “les Gavottes."

This music expresses, I think, a little of the quiet, subdued wonder of awakening in a new and beautiful place. It’s neo-Romantic and the most beautiful music ever to flow from who-knows-where through me and onto the page.

As you listen, follow the words of the last of the paragraphs I quoted from the novel, the one beginning, “She stared.” You'll hear the clarinet “singing” and ornamenting the text.

“She stared … Such beauty … and she there to see it …”

To hear les Gavottes’ exquisite performance of the 2nd movement from my Trio #2 for clarinet, cello and piano: “Enchantment of April,” click on the link above.

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

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
Apr. 5, 2020

🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶

I fell in love with French when I was 20.

It was an intense, summer-long affair.

Don’t get me wrong!

I refer to a ten-week summer course at Ohio State University into which I threw myself, heart and soul. When I wasn’t studying, I looked at books about French art. Even when I was studying, I listened to Debussy and Ravel.

From that summer forward, I yearned to visit Paris. The years passed as other priorities obviated the possibility. College, career, children, mortgage payments, the usual stuff.

'Then one day...' (as storytellers say), I received a letter from a Parisian clarinetist, Jean-Noel Martin, requesting the sheet music for works he’d heard on a CD recording of my music he’d found at a Paris record store.

Remember record stores?

I sent him the music and we became pen-pals. I'd write to him in French; he'd reply in English, each of us practicing our second languages.

This was before e-mail. Remember letters?

After two years Jean-Noel, invited me to come over. I was thrilled! He kindly met me at Charles DeGaulle airport and squired me back to his tiny apartment, not far from the Jardin de Luxembourg. He moved out, stayed with a friend during my eleven-day visit, letting me use his flat. All for free.

“C’est un ami si bon!"

His apartment was tiny; the bed occupied two-thirds of the floor space. It was on the fifth floor of a classic old Parisian apartment building. There was no elevator. The WC was down the hall, shared by the floor’s other tenants. The hallway light switch was timed to turn itself off after 90 seconds; unless you could find a light switch again, you made the return journey in pitch darkness.

The apartment had a tiny sink, a two-burner hot plate, a refrigerator the size of a waste-basket, a “Murphy” desk that folded down when needed, and book shelves on every inch of the walls. Its one window afforded a stark view of the building’s opposite wing. I loved everything about it!

I didn’t see much of Jean-Noel after the first day; he had his job, lessons to teach, rehearsals to attend. In two or three brief rendezvous, he presented me with handwritten lists of suggested activities and sites to visit with notes: directions, particular things to seek out, notice, appreciate.

Every day, I walked and walked and walked, exploring as many neighborhoods as possible. Though I was 41 and in good shape, there were afternoons when my tired legs forced me back to the apartment, just to put up my feet and rest, poring over guide books the while.

Paris was marvelous, exhilarating. The architecture, cafés, parks, museums, monuments, people, the Metro, the beautiful language. Things ‘clicked’ for me, dozens of times, every day.

For instance, I stumbled upon a street named the Rue Nicot. A little sign explained that it was named for Jean Nicot who introduced tobacco to the French, presenting it to the queen mother, Catherine de Medici, as a cure for her migraines. Fashionable people took up the practice and Nicot became a celebrity. Thus originated the word ... “nicotine.”

I’ve always hated smoking, but this was fascinating. it’s one example of how my understanding of things large and small was expanded by a myriad of minute discoveries made daily, almost hourly, in Paris.

I became obsessed with a desire to return … and I’ve managed to get back to France seven times since that first visit in 1991. Sometimes alone, sometimes with friends, sometimes for ten days, and once, with wife and children in tow, for ten weeks! In a rented car, we circumambulated the entire country, ending with three weeks in Paris.

La Belle France, land of my ancestors (the origin of my peculiar last name is the French family name “Sauvage,”) enriched my life immensely and inspired me, too.

The music I want to share today could serve as the film score for one of those sweet, little French movies, shot in Paris, about two shy people falling in love.

Written specifically for three French musicians who call themselves "les Gavottes,” my Trio #2 for clarinet, cello and piano, “Enchantment of April” my intention was to give the music a French inflection.

The musicians liked it because, to them, it sounded so American! I remember Lucien, the clarinetist, saying, as we listened to their CD recording of the work, “This part makes me think of the American West!”, pantomiming a galloping cowboy, reins in one hand, waving an imaginary cowboy hat with the other. I laughed with him, but what I hear in this music is the French influence. I guess the music is best described as Franco-American.

To hear les Gavottes’ exquisite rendering of the third movement from my Trio #2 for clarinet, cello and piano, “Enchantment of April,” click on the link above.

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