Gifts are on many people's minds, this time of year. You may not think of it this way, but you are gifting me by allowing me to share these musical messages with you. When artists know their work is engaging an audience, even a small one, It means so much that it feels like a gift. Thank you.

This time I want to share a short original Christmas carol (2:48; the fourth link on the list above).

Non-Christian friends and fans, please pardon the Christmas reference. It's not my intention to proselytize. What I want to share is the sweetness of the tune, for its own sake, the Christian content aside.

The carol is sung by Jose Rubio, a wonderful baritone who used to live in the apartment right above ours, here on Milton Street in Cincinnati. It was a joy to hear him vocalizing upstairs!

In this recording, Jose sings the carol with such warmth and feeling that I fancy I can hear him smiling as he sings. And I love the way rolls his 'r's.

As befits a carol, the tune is simple and doesn't vary through the four verses. Instead, it’s the accompaniment that differs for each verse: the piano is tone-painting the ideas expressed in the lyrics.

To see how this is done, follow the words as you listen:

On Christmas morn the birds all wake and fly, cu-roo,
to seek the Child with wand'ring cry, cu-roo, cu-roo,
the thrush, the swallow, the bluebird small,
they gather round His cradle stall, cu-roo, cu-roo, cu-roo.

The crow and jay their raucous cries do still, cu-roo,
to join the dove and whippoorwill, cu-roo, cu-roo,
the larks in exultation sing
to glorify their newborn King, cu-roo, cu-roo, cu-roo.

On silent wings the wise-eye'd owls descend, cu-roo,
the falcon and the sweet brown wren, cu-roo, cu-roo,
with quail and pheasant by Mary's side
the folk of field and glen abide, cu-roo, cu-roo, cu-roo.

The feather'd choir its cheerful an-thems raise, cu-roo,
to warm the frosty dawn with praise cu-roo, cu-roo,
and with the angel host above,
they greet the tiny Bird of Love, cu-roo, cu-roo.

The tune for this carol came to me in a dream in the Fall of 1978. This has happened only three or four times. I woke up and wrote it down, quickly! I was afraid I'd forget it. I always thought the tune sounded like a Christmas carol; later I added appropriate words.

In scoring the tune, I had the idea of including, in the piano part, quotations of one of the world’s most famous melodies. Several times and especially at the end, you'll hear the piano accompaniment quoting the opening of J.S. Bach's most famous tune, "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring."

Bach’s “Jesu” tune is one of the greatest melodies ever conceived, ever-fresh, always a blessing. What gifts old Bach left for us!

Jose Rubio is joined by Avedis Manoogian in the recording above.

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The Golden Lamb is Ohio’s oldest inn, in operation since 1803. My grandparents dearly loved the place and sometimes took my brother and me there for weekend stays back in the 1950’s. I remember sleeping in the huge, carved, Victorian bed in the room that honors Charles Dickens, one of the inn’s many famous guests.

Unchanged today, the Golden Lamb is a place where I can still feel the presence of my beloved grandparents. Our own little family dines there, once a year, on Jo’s birthday.

In the late 1970’s we stayed in the inn with a group of friends we’d brought down from north central Ohio (where we lived until 1994) to attend the Boar’s Head Festival at Cincinnati’s Christ Church Cathedral.

One of our party, impressed with the inn’s Christmas decorations, said, “There ought to be a Carol of the Golden Lamb.” A few weeks later she sent me a sweet little poem she’d written. Here it is:

* * * * * * * * * *

The Carol of the Golden Lamb
by K. A. (she likes to keep a low profile, unlike a certain hambone composer you know)

The frost lay light upon the slopes,
The stars were crystal thorns,
When from the soul of earth's weak hopes
The Shepherd Child was born.

Then came all creatures great and small
To celebrate the new-born King;
With muzzled fang and sheathed claw
Their homage wild to bring.

But one small lamb, the only one
Of winged and creeping folk,
New-born as well, had missed the Son
Whom men of old forespoke.

Well-guarded by her shepherd's crook
The lamb grew ever strong.
Yet longing sunny days o'er-took
And hushed the lambkin's song.

One hazy dawn she slipped away
To roam the dusty streets.
She found the tiny Prince that day
And kept her vigil sweet.

She watched Him from the open door;
She dared not enter there
For fear her hooves upon the floor
Would wake the Infant fair.

The Babe awoke and crowed with glee
To see the curly lamb.
He crooned in child-like hymnody,
He waved His tiny hands.

And as she knelt beside His cot,
The golden Day-spring sun
Glowed soft and shining on her coat —
Of golden ringlets spun.

* * * * * * * * * *

I set this poem to music, first as a choral piece, later as a baritone solo.

To hear baritone Jose Rubio smilingly singing "Carol of The Golden Lamb” (I fancy I can hear his smile, especially in the final line when he rolls the “R” in “ringlets") with collaborative pianist Avedis Manoogian, click on the link above.

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

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
Dec. 27, 2015

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Can you hear a smile?

Listen to one of my Christmas carols sung by Jose Rubio, a wonderful baritone who used to live in the apartment above ours. His vocalizations descended upon us like the Holy Spirit, right through our ceiling!

Jose’s treatment of this carol has such warmth that I like to fancy I can hear him smiling as he sings. And I love how he rolls his 'r's.

As befits a carol, the tune is simple and doesn't vary through the four verses. Instead, the accompaniment changes, painting the images expressed by the words.

Follow the words as you listen:

On Christmas morn the birds all wake and fly, cu-roo,
to seek the Child with wand'ring cry, cu-roo, cu-roo,
the thrush, the swallow, the bluebird small,
they gather round His cradle stall, cu-roo, cu-roo, cu-roo.

The crow and jay their raucous cries do still, cu-roo,
to join the dove and whippoorwill, cu-roo, cu-roo,
the larks in exultation sing
to glorify their newborn King, cu-roo, cu-roo, cu-roo.

On silent wings the wise-eye'd owls descend, cu-roo,
the falcon and the sweet brown wren, cu-roo, cu-roo,
with quail and pheasant by Mary's side
the folk of field and glen abide, cu-roo, cu-roo, cu-roo.

The feather'd choir its cheerful an-thems raise, cu-roo,
to warm the frosty dawn with praise cu-roo, cu-roo,
and with the angel host above,
they greet the tiny Bird of Love, cu-roo, cu-roo.
On Christmas morn the birds all wake and sing, cu-roo, cu-roo.

The accompaniment (played delicately by pianist Avedis Manoogian) quotes fragments of one of the greatest melodies ever conceived, J.S. Bach's ever-fresh "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring."

To hear Jose and Avedis performing The Carol of the Birds, click on the link above.

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

🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶

Can Nature instruct us?

“Yes!” answer the Romantic poet-philosophers I admire: Henry Thoreau, Odell Shepard, Annie Dillard, Wendell Barry, Mary Oliver and the like.

And yet … we can admire someone without necessarily sharing their opinions.

“To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language.”

So said William Cullen Bryant and he said it very well, but is it really true? A language consists of words, as a poet should know. Nature has yet to speak a word within earshot of me.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux asserts:
“You will find something more in the woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters.”

What is this “something more” that we will find in the woods? A heightened sensual awareness? I can buy that. A breeze passing through the trees or a stream splashing over stones certainly are “something more” than is found in books. They are pleasant sounds and happy memories but I cannot say that I have learned anything from them.

“There are three things we never tire of looking at,” asserted my philosopher friend Bill Tyree, “a flickering flame, water in motion and a baby’s face.” True enough, but do we actually learn from looking at these manifestations of Nature.

In “As You Like It,” Shakespeare may be satirizing the notion that Nature has it in Her power to educate us, when he puts these words into the mouth of a naive city-dweller, newly converted to the “back to the Earth” movement, upon arriving in the Forest of Arden:

“… our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”

Is he deluded or just showing off? Tongues in trees? Books in brooks? Sermons in stones? Good in EVERYTHING? Ticks? Mosquitos? Poison ivy?

Hear how, 2000 years earlier, Socrates set straight his friend Phaedrus:

“We cannot learn anything from trees, comfortable as it may be to converse in their shade.”

Nature does not instruct. Nor does music. They are, rather, a fathomless fount of metaphors. Sermons are not in stones; they are in us. Stones, regarded as metaphors, help us find varieties of wisdom within ourselves, just as music helps us find states of mind which we already possess.

Same with the holly and the ivy, the cardinal, and all the rest of Nature, even, I suppose, the ticks.

While I doubt Nature can teach me anything I do not already know, I happily admit that She often reminds me of things too easily forgotten.

For example, Nature, here in Ohio, in January, forces us to recall the vast difference between “gray day” and “Grade A.”

A sunny day is Grade A ... a gray day is not.

(Grade A? Gray day? Ah! How clever I felt when I thought of that! Like Bottom who, admiring his own rhetorical flourishes, says, “This was lofty!” -- and makes us laugh.)

Consider the holly and the ivy. Ever green, loyal and lovable. Like the cardinal, they see us through the long winter.

I remember the sudden upsurge of happiness I've felt when, standing at the window early on a winter morning, snug in my woolen robe and fur-lined slippers, pressing my hot coffee mug against my chest, the fragrant steam rising to my face, I've glimpsed a bright red cardinal gracing the green holly and spreading English ivy in our snowy side yard. Nature can help us recall our capacity for feeling happy.

Holly speaks in quotation marks, like a character in a play, in the last line of a little poem I know, attributed by some to Henry VIII.

Green grow'th the holly, so doth the ivy,
Though winter winds blow never so high,
Green grow'th the holly.

Full gold the harvest, grain for thy labor,
With God must work for daily bread,
Else, man, thou starvest.

Fast fall the shed leaves, russet and yellow,
Resting buds are snug and safe
Where swung the dead leaves.

Green grow'th the holly, so doth the ivy,
The God of life can never die.
“Hope!” saith the holly.

Bless the holly, the ivy and the resting buds; they do something better than mere instruction: they remind us to hope, something we sometimes forget to do and of which we need reminding.

I invented a nice tune for that poem and scored it for baritone and piano. It's a carol: a simple tune repeated without variation, with different lyrics each time. Good tunes bear repeating; this is a good one.

I tried to use the piano to 'paint' the ideas the words express. When the leaves are falling fast in the third verse, the piano sketches the scene in fluttering eighth notes. The bare branches, "where swung the dead leaves," are expressed with the chilly emptiness of octaves.

To hear baritone Jose Rubio singing "Green Grow’th the Holly" with collaborative pianist Avedis Manoogian, click on the link above.

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