For many years a good part of the Sowash’s financial life has occurred within The Gift Economy, a vaguely defined, shadowy economy, disconnected from cash or barter.

We all participate in The Gift Economy when we give birthday or Holiday gifts or take a casserole to a friend recovering from surgery. Presenting such gifts, we don't expect cash or a barter item in return. The mention of cash or a hinted expectation of receiving a bartered item in return would be insulting. A gift is a gift.

Yet gifts do return to us. A certain old book promises as much: "Cast your bread upon the waters and after many days it shall return to you." What goes around, comes around.

I'm writing these words in early June while staying in our friends' home on a quiet backroad in the mountains of northwest Connecticut. When they travel, we house-sit for them. We've done this for years. We keep an eye on things, pull a few weeds, do a little house-painting, nothing much. House-sitting here is their gift to us, our gift to them.

I could recount many other instances of our participation in The Gift Economy, both as givers and receivers. With us, it's a way of life.

When our kids were little, a friend was part owner of an historic hotel in Cape May, NJ, which allowed him three weeks of free lodging each year. Like most rich people, he was too busy and never took advantage of the opporunity. He kindly offered the free lodging to our family. We joyfully accepted! Each summer for seven years we passed three idyllic weeks in beautiful, quaint, historic, Victorian Cape May.

We had some of the best times of our lives there, strolling streets lined with lovingly restored homes, enjoying the gardens, picnicking at the Cape May Point Lighthouse, looking for Cape May 'diamonds,' semi-precious gems that wash up on the beach. I bought a bag of plastic toy pirate coins and tossed them, one by one, in the sand just ahead of our little son, when he wasn't looking; he had the fun of finding them.

Each morning, I'd get up very early (I've always been an early riser), slip out to a bakery, buy almond croissants for the family, return to our room to leave them on the dresser, then stroll the beach at my leisure, noticing things, humming to myself and thinking about music as the dawn gave way to day.

That was the origin of "Morning at Seaside," the opening movement of my four-movement Cape May Suite. The cello opens with five notes depicting a wave hovering and then crashing, followed by a longer, rising phrase suggesting a larger heave of water behind it, also making a rising, hovering, then crashing motion. The other instruments soon enter, developing that opening 'hovering-then-crashing' motive.

It's scored for only four instruments -- oboe, violin, cello and piano -- but the combination sounds surprisingly orchestral.

I wrote my Cape May Suite -- for free -- for the West End Chamber Ensemble, musicians who played those instruments. In turn, they premiered and recorded it -- for free. Now I'm sharing it with you -- for free.

That is how the Gift Economy works! You put your bread upon the water and, sure enough, it returns to you.

To hear "Morning at Seaside" from my Cape May Suite, click on the link above.

To see a PDF of the score -- for free -- click on the link above.

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
June 22, 2014

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One of the things that makes so-called “classical” music different from other kinds of music is that it often comes in movements.

[ “Movements? He’s going to yammer on about movements when the Nation is wrenched with grisly news of murder and mayhem and the vitally important issues of racism and the containment of violence demand our attention?” Yes, I am. Why? Because one appropriate and healthy way of responding to horror, racism and violence is to affirm the value of the good things we all cherish — among which are music, friendship and community. ]

A movement is a section of a larger work. A short silence separates it from preceding and following movements. A movement is a completed expression and can stand alone. But the logic of its existence is stronger when it is heard in its place, among the other movements in the larger work of which it is a part.

The sequence of movements in a multi-movement work is not random. The sequence is devised to provide contrasts in tempo and character as the listener journeys through the entire work.

For example, the first movement of a concerto is usually moderately fast and expansive in character; the second movement is usually slow, sensitive, introspective; the third movement is usually fast and rousing, a shameless bid for a big round of applause after the last note is sounded. (Most concertos have three movements, most symphonies four.)

The differing character of the movements is not random either. The movements must be diverse, but not too diverse. Unless the composer is going for humor or irony, a funeral march ought not to be followed by a polka. Different as the movements may be from one another, they still need to be in some way unified, a sum greater than its parts.
Composers are fascinated by things like this. But I have noticed that the eyes of non-composers glaze over pretty quickly when the conversation turns to musical structure.

People need a metaphor to which they can relate. Understandable!

Here’s one: think of a multi-movement piece of music as a series of related paintings by the same artist, displayed together. The wall space between the paintings corresponds to the brief silences between the movements.

If you’ve hung paintings, you know that there is an art to it. It’s a tricky business, balancing several paintings so as to please the eye. There is a mysterious tension between the paintings, arising from their size and content.

It’s the same with movements. Composing is not only a matter of coming up with good tunes. Songwriters do that and hats off to them. But composers are concerned with the ways in which music compels and rewards careful listening over an extended period of time. That is achieved partly through the distribution of contrasting movements.

There are four movements in my Cape May Suite for oboe, violin, cello and piano. The first and last, entitled “Morning at Seaside” and “Ghostly Waltzes at Congress Hall,” are long, about eight minutes, and scored for all four instruments. The music in those movements has an expansive, public character.

By contrast the two inner movements, entitled “Dinner at Louisa’s” and “Couple in a Victorian Garden,” are short, two or three minutes long. Both are scored for just two instruments and have a quiet, private character. “Dinner at Louisa’s,” depicting a couple dining in a small, intimate restaurant, is scored for cello and piano. “Couple in a Victorian Garden” is scored for the other two instruments: oboe and violin.

Returning to the analogy of paintings on a wall, the outer movements are like two large paintings while the inner movements are like two small paintings. Think how you might arrange two large paintings and two small paintings, hanging all four on the same wall.

That was part of what I was thinking about when I assembled my Cape May Suite.

For some reason, our daughter, Shenandoah, who was 11 years old when I wrote this music, was captivated by the “Couple in a Victorian Garden” movement. She listened to the recording of it many times and often told me, “Papa, that is the most beautiful music you ever wrote.” Mind you, at that time she had heard relatively few of my 400 works but she was, typically for her, completely confident in making this pronouncement. That’s our girl!

See what you think.

To hear "Couple in a Victorian Garden" from my Cape May Suite played by oboist Robert Franz and violinist Brendan Christensen, click on the link above.

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

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
July 10, 2016

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One time when I was a boy, I opened my bedroom door and there was Johnson. He passed through me with a low moan, and went out the window.

It set me back a bit. I was just a boy and had never seen a ghost before.

Next morning, I mentioned it to my Dad.

“Oh yes,” he answered. “That’s Johnson.” And he told me his story -- and how we’d gotten the house for twenty thousand less because of him.

Johnson, it seems, when he was alive, had loved a girl by the name of Emily who used to live in our house. He was too poor to marry her so he kissed her goodbye and set off for the California Gold Rush.

Twenty years later he returned, only to find the house silent and deserted. Emily and her folks had disappeared one foggy night and no one had seen or heard of them since, although the landlord and most of the local merchants had made serious inquiries.

Poor Johnson sought his lost love all over the world for years after, but never found her. He finally returned to this very house, where he had visited the girl so long before. He wandered about the rooms, weeping and calling her name, and when the fellow died, why, naturally enough, his ghost retained the habit.

After that it seemed we were always meeting Johnson. At first, we walked around him or stood aside to let him pass, but after a while there didn’t seem much point to such courtesies, since he could walk right through us.

You couldn’t say he was ever in the way.

He was a gentle, harmless old ghost and we all felt sorry for him.

But, after a while, he got to be a pain. He was so darned gloomy all the time. And all that moaning and sighing -- you could hardly sleep.

“I’ve had about enough of this,” my Dad said one evening.

“Well,” said my mother, “you won’t see the last of him until he’s found Emily’s grave. That’s what he’s after.”

Now this seemed reasonable, but none of us knew the location of the grave. We thought of palming off some other Emily on him, but though we searched up and down every aisle of the local cemetery, there were no Emilies to be found. I never saw a cemetery so destitute of dead Emilies.

“How ‘bout if we fake him out?” my brother finally suggested. He put up a little mound out back of the house with a slab of wood sticking out of it, on which he scribbled, “Here Lies Emily. Her last words were: Tell Johnson I love him.”

“That oughta fetch him,” my brother said.

Sure enough, Johnson showed up that very night. The way he flung himself on that mound and wept was one of the most pathetic things I’ve ever seen. We all had tears in our eyes, I can tell you.

He never troubled us in the house again after that. He spent every night sobbing over the grave and seemed quite happy and content.

Is he still there? Sure he is. I could take you round to see him.

10 p.m to midnight are his usual hours. 10 to 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

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The above is my re-telling of a story by Jerome K. Jerome. It was originally written in English; I translated it into American.

If you enjoyed it, then you might also enjoy a new book I’m just finishing, a salmagundi of my humorous writings titled, “Was That Your Piece?” In mid-January, I’ll send an email to friends and fans announcing the publication and how to order copies. All profits will be donated to the scholarship fund at the school where I teach.

Meanwhile, the tongue-in-cheek-iness of the tale of poor old Johnson is also to be found in my "Ghostly Waltzes," the final movement of my "Cape May Suite.” To hear it played by oboist Robert Franz, violinist Brandon Christensen, cellist Carl Donakowsky and pianist Adrienne Kim, click on the link above.

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

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Two books I published, out of print for several years, have been re-issued in second editions and are now back in print. The typos have been corrected!

My humorous boyhood memoir, “The Boy Who Would Be Famous,” and Odell Shepard's “The Cabin Down the Glen” (which I discovered and edited) can be purchased on amazon.com. Before the virus came along, I filled orders for my publications; nowadays I refer folks to amazon.com to buy my books because I feel unsafe entering a post office.

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I rarely mention my health but these days, people want to know how one another are doing. Just so you know, our family is well, so far, though very concerned and extremely cautious. We don’t enter Kroger’s; our groceries are brought out to our car. Church and school are shut down indefinitely; both have a lingering presence on-line and I keep in touch.

Meanwhile, we’re riding the bike trail, doing jigsaw puzzles, watching shows on Netflix & Acorn.

I’m catching up on my daydreaming, rediscovering the deliciousness of an afternoon nap, and indulging in long swings in the hammock I stretched between two mighty pines in the far rear corner of our property.

My psyche is buoyed by something beautiful that is growing and developing in defiance of the numbing news of disease, death and economic collapse that press upon us. I want to tell you about it.

It's a major landscaping project we began last Fall and which we hope to see it through by this summer’s end.

We commissioned the design and construction of a 12’ by 12’ pavilion in the center of our back yard. It looks like a simplified Greek temple. In keeping with the Greek Revival style of our house, the ‘temple’ replicates the white pillars and cornices that grace our front porch.

Like many ancient Greek structures, it is simply a square topped by a triangle. The tin roof will form a shallow pyramid and will be painted the same forest green color as the shutters and window boxes on our house, the house's roof, the picket fence, the park benches, the cellar door, the shutters and window boxes, etc. The pavilion is pure white. Inside, we’ll look up at a tongue-and-groove cedar ceiling. It’s an American expression, in wood, of what the ancients did in stone. I am eager to sit out there when I can listen to raindrops tapping on the tin roof.

The back yard will be reconfigured into a lower and upper garden, separated by a low stone wall with a small fountain in the center. We’re planting many shrubs, perennials, Emerald arbor vitae and Green Giant pines at the front and sides of our property.

The final touch will be double French doors opening out to the pavilion from the rear of the house, where there is now only a blank wall.

At present the backyard looks much more like a construction site than a garden. Still, It is satisfying to see it coming into being, to see a dream realized.

Unlike my books and music, our garden is being created for a minuscule audience: just Jo and me and the rare guest or family member who might eventually join us in our ‘Greek temple.’ But that’s OK. Some art is intended for a tiny audience.

This is almost certainly the last dwelling place that we two will fashion for ourselves and we want it to be a nourishing environment, inside and out..

Jo and I haven’t much minded hunkering down these past ten weeks because that is pretty much our style in any case. We never went out much. We love our home and we like being together so, though I’m almost ashamed to admit it, considering how many are suffering so egregiously, the two of us are not only well but pretty happy most of the time.

I grieve the loss of the world as it was — no more church, in effect, no more school — and I grieve and pray for all who are suffering — but I try not to wallow.

I don’t know — who does? — what the future holds for my many friends who are actors, musicians, choir directors. We are all groping to find ways to share our art in this time. In one sense, that’s nothing new. I groped for years before I discovered the potential that lies in sharing these emails about my writings and music.

These emails you kindly permit me to send are a modest attempt to offer a bit of … what? … not escape, exactly …. a regularly recurring reminder that there are other realms of interest besides the dreary dirge of bad news.

Though it wasn’t what I intended when I began sending these emails six years ago, that act has evolved into a sort of service I can offer, a ministry of sorts. At least that is what it feels like to me now.

To hear "Couple in a Victorian Garden" from my Cape May Suite played by oboist Robert Franz and violinist Brendan Christensen, click on the link above.

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

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When our kids were little, we had a friend who was part-owner of Congress Hall, an historic, seaside hotel in Cape May, NJ. One of his ‘perks’ was a free room at the hotel for three weeks each summer. Unable to use it himself, he kindly offered our little family the opportunity. We joyfully accepted! For seven summers, we had a free place to stay for three idyllic weeks in beautiful, quaint, Victorian Cape May.

Those were some of the best times of our lives. We passed the days playing in the sand, cooling our ankles in the surf, riding the waves on inflatable rafts, strolling past lovingly restored Victorian homes, admiring the flourishing gardens.

We made almost every supper a picnic at the quiet little park at Cape May Point, two miles from bustling Cape May proper. We roasted chicken and corn-on-the-cob on the charcoal grills and downed them, along with pickles and potato salad, seated at a picnic table. Jo has pronounced our picnics there as the happiest moments of her life, her best moments as wife, mother and keystone of our little family.

When I wrote my Cape May Suite, I expanded my scope beyond that of an Ohio composer. It was my first foray, musically, beyond the borders of my home state and would be followed by many more. Until then, I had thought, “An Ohio composer should write music about the experience of life in Ohio.” And I did. Quite a lot of it. But after several summers at Cape May, I felt that I had some things to say about that location as well, specifically about the ocean.

Two of the pieces of classical music that I most admire are Debussy’s “La Mer” and Vaughan Williams’ epic “Sea Symphony.” Both express, masterfully, the vastness, beauty and grandeur of the ocean. What could I say about the “the cradle endlessly rocking” that they had not already said so well? Nothing. Still …

Whatever I might find to say would have to be very modest in comparison to those orchestral masterworks. I would write not for orchestra, as they did, but rather for a chamber ensemble: violin, oboe, cello and piano. And I would not write about the entirety of the Seven Seas that cover 70% of the earth’s surface. Instead, I would evoke just one aspect of the sea and at just one moment of the day: how it feels, in the early morning hours, to watch the changing shapes of the waves as they approach the shore.

The first movement of the suite is titled, “Morning at Seaside.” The solo cello depicts a solitary person on the beach, observing the waves.

The cello limns two distinct wave-shapes. Look at the first five notes of the piece [in the score above]. They outline a small wave as it crests and drops: a note is heard, drops a half step, returns; there’s a tiny rest as the wave hovers. Then the motif ascends a step and quickly drops a fourth, evoking the curling plunge of the wave.

Now look at the next six notes: they form a second, contrasting motif: an arch: the first three notes rise in fourths, the next three notes drop. Up and down. Rising and falling, like a large, swelling wave, looming behind the smaller one.

Two contrasting motifs; how will they relate to one another, how will they reconcile? That is the question out of which the piece grows, the tension that propels it forward. Every measure, phrase or chord of the movement that follows will arise from one or the other of those motifs, often in tandem. The two motifs intertwine, lengthen, shorten and repeat, like waves.

"Morning at Seaside" is an exercise in musical development, yes, the aspect of music of which Beethoven is the undisputed master. Yet this music does not at all sound “German” or “Austrian.” It sounds American, demonstrating that motivic development is not the exclusive domain of the classical composers of old.

Too, the piece is an instance of a musical genre that had not yet been invented in Beethoven’s day: the tone poem. It aspires to evoke the mysterious beauty of the seashore in the hour of dawn. See how effectively you think this music does that.

To hear it beautifully played by oboist Robert Franz, violinist Brandon Christensen, cellist Carl Donakowsky and pianist Adrienne Kim, click the link above.

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Hanging paintings, you need a hammer, some nails and something else as well, something you cannot buy at a hardware store. You need respect for the mysterious tension between the paintings, emanating from their varying sizes and content. Displaying several paintings on a single wall and in a pleasing, balanced alignment is a tricky business

It’s the same with the movements of a multi-movement piece of music. There is more to composing than the invention of good tunes. Composers hope their music will compel attention and reward careful listening. That is achieved partly through the alignment of contrasting movements.

There are four movements in my Cape May Suite for oboe, violin, cello and piano. The first and last, titled “Morning at Seaside” and “Ghostly Waltzes at Congress Hall,” are long, about eight minutes each, and scored for all four instruments. The music in those movements has an expansive, public character.

The two inner movements, titled “Dinner at Louisa’s” and “Couple in a Victorian Garden,” are briefer. Both are scored for just two instruments and have a quiet, intimate character. Both portray a loving couple. “Dinner at Louisa’s,” depicts a couple dining in a small restaurant and is scored for cello and piano. “Couple in a Victorian Garden” is scored for the other two instruments in the ensemble: oboe and violin.

The longer, outer movements are like two large paintings; the inner movements are like two small paintings. Think how you might arrange, on one wall, two large paintings and two small paintings.

For some reason, our daughter, Shenandoah, who was 10 years old when I wrote this music, was captivated by the “Couple in a Victorian Garden” movement. She listened to the recording of it many times and very earnestly told me, “Papa, that is the most beautiful music you ever wrote.” Mind you, at that time she had heard only a few of my 400 works but she was completely confident in making this pronouncement. That’s our girl!

To hear "Couple in a Victorian Garden" from my Cape May Suite played by oboist Robert Franz and violinist Brendan Christensen, click on the link above.

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