For everyone who lives in north central Ohio, where I was born and reared and lived my first 44 years, ‘The Lake’ looms large.

Not so in Cincinnati. After moving here in 1994 (so that our two children could attend the city's celebrated School for the Creative and Performing Arts), I was shocked to find that when I mentioned ‘The Lake,’ people asked me, "What lake?"

What lake? Were they kidding? To a northern Ohioan there is only one lake. ‘The Lake.’ Lake Erie.

Here in Cincinnati it's ‘The River.’ The Ohio River. If Cincinnatians mentioned ‘the river’ and I asked, "What river?" they would think I was kidding.

Several generations of Sowashes passed many happy summers on the shores of Lake Erie, in Lakeside, a Chautauqua resort near Sandusky. For a while, our family even had a cottage there and a small sailboat in which I ventured to Kelly's Island and elsewhere, exploring the waters where Oliver Hazard Perry defeated the British Navy at the Battle of Lake Erie. To this day, northern Ohioans take pride in that victory, which proved a much-needed morale-booster for our side in the War of 1812.

Once, strange to tell, on a very windy day, sailing with my ten-year-old nephew, our little craft floundered. Despite a hard-blowing wind, we were just bobbing around, not going anywhere. How could that be?

I looked around. Was there something wrong with the rudder? the keel? No. Looking up, I discovered the problem: the sail had come loose from the top of the mast. I could not climb the mast to repair it. We were a long way from shore. There was only one thing to do.

We slid into the water and dog-paddled, buoyed by our life-jackets, tugging behind us a rope attached to the sailboat. At length we landed on one of the many tiny, unnamed islands in the waters rendered glorious by O.H. Perry. We beached our boat, shipwrecked on a desert island! We tipped the boat on its side and used our shoelaces to fasten the sail back onto the mast and then sailed back to Lakeside in triumph, with a story to tell! My nephew was beaming with joy! He'd had a real adventure!

Even now and then, here in Cincinnati, in this humid valley carved by ‘The River’ so long ago, I step outside to find that the wind is brisk and fast, the air dry and clear. Yesterday morning was like that, a clear September day. At such moments, though we've lived in the Queen City for twenty years, though I've not set foot in a sailboat in all that time, I always think, "Ah! A perfect day for sailing!"

That's the subtitle I gave to the third movement of Anecdotes and Reflections (1989), my concertino for violin, clarinet, cello and piano.

To hear "A Perfect Day for Sailing" played by clarinetist Craig Olzenak with the Mirecourt Trio (violinist Ken Goldsmith, cellist Terry King and pianist John Jensen), click on the link above.

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

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
Sept. 21, 2014

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It’s the weekend of the Glorious Fourth. Marches by the incomparable John Philip Sousa will be heard in parades, concerts and broadcasts across America.

Sousa truly is The March King, the unrivaled master of his genre. For the sheer zest of his tunes, for his ability to start toes tapping, for his knack of inducing crowds to hysterical cheering, for the images that leap to mind whenever his music is heard — flags waving, athletes, candidates, confetti — let us give thanks for and pay homage to John Philip Sousa.

My own tribute to Sousa is the sixth and final movement of my longest work: Anecdotes and Reflections. It’s my attempt at a portrait of America, celebrating our exuberance, our energy, our sense of ourselves as the great Melting Pot, our tradition of tolerance and our capacity to embrace and rejoice in our diversity.

(I am not blind to our problems; there is much to deplore. One way of responding to Evil is to celebrate what is good.)

This music was composed in 1989, commissioned by Chamber Music in Yellow Springs, Inc., of Yellow Springs, Ohio, in memory of a founder of the organization, Louise Betcher.

My Sousa tribute ends with a tune borrowed from the Master's great “Liberty Bell March.” Sousa’s tune is given a twist or two, but you may recognize it. (Composers are allowed to borrow from one another, did you know?)

To hear the Mirecourt Trio (violinist Ken Goldsmith, cellist Terry King and pianist John Jensen) and clarinetist Craig Olzenak's exuberant rendition of the final movement from “Anecdotes and Reflections,” click on the link above.

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

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
July 5, 2015

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A young composer sent me an mp3 recording and a PDF of the score of a piece he had written, asking my opinion of the music.

I dislike the role of a judge. As if music is a contest and I’m somehow qualified to separate the winners from the losers. I hate contests that pretend to have the ability to judge creativity, a thing which cannot even be measured let alone presented Gold, Silver or Bronze medals.

I admire what Charles Ives said when informed that he had won the Pulitzer Prize for Music: “Prizes are for boys,” he said. "I’m grown up."

Contrariwise, I’m very glad to share with composers what I have figured out about the career aspects of the craft. I have a lot to offer in response to queries such as, “How do I get my music performed? How can I get my music recorded and broadcast on classical music radio stations? Shall I publish my own scores or try to find a ‘real’ publisher? Shall I produce my own CDs or try to find a ‘real’ record label?”

But I dislike being asked to pronounce upon the quality of the music itself. Who am I to judge someone’s music? Who is anyone? Each of us is ‘just another listener.'

Still, I don’t want to be churlish. I admire the young composer having the pluck to ask me. When I was young, a wise man once imparted to me a simple truth: “If you don’t ask questions, you don’t get answers.”

I’ve asked a lot of questions and I am grateful to those who offered some answers.

That’s why, with a heavy sigh and a burdensome sense of obligation, I clicked on the mp3 the composer had sent me and listened.

Marvelous, right off the bat! Light, crisp and as fresh as if it was just back from the cleaners! Syncopated, lively, delightful!

I kept listening. More light, crisp, fresh music. More lively syncopations. Then yet more. After that, more. When that was over, more. Ugh.

There was never a hint of contrast. The piece was stuck in a light, crisp, fresh little world that soon lost my interest. I stuck it out to the end but my initial delight dwindled into tedium because the music never found its shadow, never acknowledged its opposite, its dark twin. Thus, it developed into wisdom. That’s an allusion to something Robert Frost said, that a poem should “begin in delight and end in wisdom.” That goes for music, too.

Of course, I sent an encouraging reply to the young composer. I told him the truth: that I’d found the music to be light, crisp, fresh, lively, delightful. But that’s all I told him. I let it go at that. I didn't want to be a jerk.

Here’s the thing. Any piece of music must begin in a certain place and then either 1) go someplace else and eventually return or 2) stop pretty soon and be followed by music in a different mood, key, tempo, i.e., a contrasting movement or section which must, in turn, either go someplace else and return or stop and be followed by yet another different mood, key, tempo, and so on.

When music begins in a certain place and then goes someplace else, well, the interesting question is how FAR away will it go from where it started? Is there a limit? If a composer goes TOO far away from where he started, will listeners think he’s schizophrenic? Is there some way to link two extremely disparate musics so that they remain true to the soul of the composer holding the figurative pen in hand as the work was coming into being?

If I were a little bolder, I’d have asked that young composer to do what I am asking YOU to do now … to listen to the fifth movement of my “Anecdotes & Reflections" for violin, clarinet, cello and piano. This piece “goes someplace else,” that’s for sure. No other movement in all my 400 works contains such extremely opposite musics as this one.

Please, let me walk you through it. If you want to listen WHILE you are reading the following, click on the link above.
http://www.sowash.com/recordings/mp3/anec_ref.5.mp3

It begins and ends with a ten-second “frame.” Like a painting, the music is bordered, defined, enclosed by its frame.

At second eleven (0:11) the tune commences and you immediately know that you are, musically, in a particular spot. The piano, all by itself, plays a slow, wistful, mysterious dance music, repeating it fully four times, joined first by the violin, then by the violin AND the cello, finally by the violin, the cello AND the clarinet.

So far the music, though very beautiful, seems to be ’stuck’ in that place. Hopefully, it is so beautiful that you don’t mind lingering. Patience!

Sure enough, at precisely 3:32 we hear “the frame” again, the one that commenced the movement.

But at 3:53 something different begins! A different key, meter, mood …

For some reason, this music has always made me think of Christmas, especially when it gets to 4:53.

There are many ways of “going someplace else.” One is the “wrong note.”

Listen carefully at 5:21 for the very long, very high “wrong note” in the violin. It persists for so long that it finally becomes the “right note” after all!

The “Christmas” section begins to wind down at 6:21 with a calm, repetitive figure

Suddenly! at 6:59 the “Christmas” tune is utterly transformed into, of all things, an old-time, jazzy tune, reminiscent of Benny Goodman, Djano Rinehart, Duke Ellington. Musically, we’ve reached the extreme opposite of where the movement started.

The jazzy section concludes beginning at 9:04 with a feeling of “One mo’ time, folks!” I picture a vaudeville performer singing, dancing, grimacing and waving his straw boater hat at the audience.

A quick transformation follows … we’re back to “Christmas” music in its original form, but now in a minor key …

Then the “frame” is heard again and at 9:47, the music returns to the sad and stately dance we heard at the beginng … but this time with the jazzy tune,modified, calmed down, heard in the clarinet.

At the end, the two disparate musics embrace. The reconciliation of opposites has been achieved.

It only remains for the “frame,” heard at 10:34, to bring closure.

To hear the Mirecourt Trio (violinist Ken Goldsmith, cellist Terry King and pianist John Jensen) and clarinetist Craig Olzenak's alternately sensitive and exuberant rendition of the fifth movement from “Anecdotes and Reflections,” click on the link above.

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

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There were about a hundred friends and fans on my list of recipients for these weekly emails when I began sending them, almost four years ago. Y’all sometimes forwarded them to your friends, many of whom subsequently signed up, swelling the number of recipients to 600 plus.

Though replies are not expected, I’m pleased when some of you occasionally respond with your thoughts and I always reply in turn.

One friend recently responded with this observation:

<< I have noticed something (and I'm sure I'm not the only one) consistent in your music, almost like a signature. It's that four-note descending figure, most prominent I think in your "Anecdotes & Reflections." How did it come to you, and why is it so prevalent in your works?
I have played a small handful of your pieces, listened to dozens more, and could probably at this point pick your music out of a crowd by style alone. But that four-note motif would seal the deal instantly if I was at all unsure. >>

He’s right. There IS a certain four-note shape that has inspired a great deal of my music.

If I could sit down with you at a piano and take you inside that shape by playing it for you, I’m pretty sure you’d find enthrallment was in store.

Do you recall, when you were little, holding a glass marble very close to your eye and then tilting your head toward the sky to view the brightly illumined universe inside? I remember one particular marble -- a "boulder" as we used to call the big ones -- it was a rich indigo blue, marbleized with creamy-white stripes. I was amazed to look inside; it seemed to open up infinitely. When I see photos of galaxies and nebulae I feel again what I felt when I peered inside that marble.

Sigh. I wonder if any American kids still play with marbles.

Well, for me this little four-note musical shape has been like that marble. When I peered 'inside' it, an immense range of possibilities opened. Even though I explored it for about twenty-five years, there are vast reaches still waiting to be discovered. It pops up in almost all of the works I've written in the second half of my career.

One of the many meanings it has for me is something like a signature, as when a painter signs a painting. It’s like that squiggle of red letters down in the right hand corner, “Monet.” The little shape functions exactly thus at the very end of both of the "Two Self-Portraits" that comprise my Trio #8 for clarinet, cello and piano. It's my way of inserting an autograph into the very body of the music.

The little shape is autobiographical, a musical genome. At a piano, I could show you how the sound of the shape is, at once, French and American, an indication of my genealogical and cultural heritage.

The shape can be indicated as these notes, descending: A - G - E - E flat (or D sharp, 'same diff').

Played forwards, backwards, right-side-up or upside-down, it is mysterious, sensual, blues-y. It is imbued with tension because it yearns with equal passion to move in opposite directions on the circle of fifths. In the example I gave above, it seems to indicate an A7 chord with a flatted fifth, which wants to drop to a D in the circle of fifths. But the E flat belies that, seeming to indicate a E flat 7 chord with a flatted fifth, pointing in the opposite direction, up to an A flat.

It seems alive to me, human, because — have you noticed? — we humans also yearn with equal passion to move in opposite directions.

The first three notes are pentatonic, expressing certitude, purity, simplicity, but the fourth note introduces the ambiguous tri-tone, expressing doubt. The first three notes are lulling and cozy; the fourth note is the ‘wrong’ note, chromatic, sensual, jazzy, sinister, comical, problematic; its trajectory is aimed “outside the box.” The first three notes offer three cheers for the faithful husband, solid and dependable if a bit stodgy; the fourth note turns his head; he is not incognizant of the mezzo’s dimples, hazel eyes and long, chestnut hair.

The fourth note is like a thimbleful of grenadine dropped into a beaker of clear water — clear, sterile and colorless — clear, that is, until tinged, clouded and infused by the spreading, smoky thimbleful.

When I played or sang that four-note shape, employing as the opening note each degree of a major or minor scale, melodies gushed forth. It was as if, hiking, thirsty and hot, I had discovered a cool spring on a mountain side.

The shape was particularly helpful at pivotal moments, the “seams” that separate the tunes and sections of a piece of music. When I felt I’d lingered almost too long in one tonality, the shape was always there, a catalyst, ready to bounce the music into another tonality, new and fresh.

Where did it come from? It’s the first four notes of a descending “Blues” scale, which gives it a jazzy sound. But that’s not where I found it. Years ago, I attended a conference of choral composers organized by Gregg Smith, director of the celebrated Gregg Smith Singers. One of the pieces by another of the composers at the conference began with this intriguing four-note shape. I heard it once and the seed was planted. I recall the names of neither the piece, nor the composer, though I remember that I didn’t like the piece because it scarcely sampled the enormous potential I heard in those notes.

Years later a friend pointed out that the same four-note shape occurs, just once, in the “Two Pictures” by Bartok. I listened and, sure enough, there it is. But I had been exploring the potentialities of the shape for about fifteen years by then and had never heard the Bartok piece. I did not borrow it from Bartok.

This shape came to me at precisely the right time in my life. In my twenties and early thirties, I had achieved a vibrant, pastoral style, evocative of the Ohio countryside and the quiet village life I’d known. Increasingly, that style had come to seem less honest to me. I felt I was plagiarizing myself, writing “the sort of music Rick Sowash would write” rather than writing music that truly expressed my experience.

But when I tried to force alien, non-pastoral elements into my music, such as diminished seventh chords or weird modes, the result was phonus bolonus. I longed to deepen the pastoral style, to find a door through it rather than abandoning it altogether.

That 4-note shape proved to be the mysterious little door I sought.

At 41 minutes, “Anecdotes & Reflections” is my longest work and an extended exploration of that four-note shape. Today I invite you to listen to the first movement. It begins with a repeated “A” thumping energetically in the piano. The clarinet enters playing -- you guessed ‘er, Chester! — the first statement of the four-note shape, the first of hundreds that will recur throughout the six movements of the work.

To hear the Mirecourt Trio (violinist Ken Goldsmith, cellist Terry King and pianist John Jensen) and clarinetist Craig Olzenak's exuberant rendition of the first movement of “Anecdotes and Reflections,” click on the link above.

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

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Paintings are framed.

Poems are framed -- above, below and on both sides — by the broad margins of the page.

A play is framed by what happens in the theatre before the curtain rises and by what happens after the curtain falls, transiting the audience away from reality before the play and back to reality afterwards.

The frames surrounding paintings, poems and plays are more or less symmetrical.

Not so, when music is framed.

We don’t want to hear a long introduction repeated in its entirety because, well, we’ve already heard it. Once is enough. When a piece is ending, a brief reminder of the introduction will suffice.

The clarinet solo that opens the fourth movement of the suite I named “Anecdotes and Reflections” grew from a vocal setting I’d made of Robert Frost’s poem, “Nothing Gold Can Stay.”

The clarinet ‘sings’ the famous opening line of the poem, “Nature’s first green is gold.” On the word “gold” you’ll hear the clarinet playing the descending four-note Blues figure out of which the rest of the piece grows, so that it comes across like this: “Nature’s first green is go-o-o-old.”

As the clarinet solo ends, the piano enters and an image of a river — flowing water pressing itself upon stone — is offered at 1:25, the pianist’s right hand playing a rippling figure, glittering and golden, while the dark cello evokes the breadth and depth of the water, the glistening sheen of the violin answering in canon above, the pianist’s left hand evoking the bedrock beneath the current.

The clarinet’s opening, compressed into a single phrase, recurs at 2:42, drawing the music to its conclusion, ending, as Frost ends his brief, powerful poem, sadly yet wisely: “Nothing gold can stay."

To hear the Mirecourt Trio (violinist Ken Goldsmith, cellist Terry King and pianist John Jensen and clarinetist Craig Olzenak) expertly performing the first movement of “Anecdotes and Reflections,” click on the link above.

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

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This past summer I wrote a book titled The Blue Rock, and I built a stone wall.

Writing, I used words we all know, most of them very old, to construct sentences, paragraphs and chapters, organizing them into an orderly and logical design. Much like building a wall.

Building, I used stones immemorially old, harvesting them from a creek bed a mile north of my home.

Alongside steep Muchmore Road (its real name), there is a winding creek; thousands of stones sleep in its bed. In my little Honda Fit, I made twenty trips to that creekbed and back. I parked along the road, clambered down the slope, searched out rocks that were flat, had at least one straight side and were not too heavy to lift. After tossing about thirty rocks onto the creek’s bank, I clambered back up out of the ravine and placed them, about ten at a time, onto a four-wheel push-cart which I lugged along a path leading back to my car.

Twenty trips, thirty rocks each time; I brought home at least six hundred rocks. I assembled them like a jig-saw puzzle, into a wall about two feet high and sixty-five feet long. From a local gardening center, I bought fifty bags of topsoil, each weighing forty pounds. -- a TON of dirt! -- to fill the gap behind the wall. Now we have standing beds where the lawn meets the shrubs in front of our house. My new wall looks like it has been there since the house was built in 1830. Building it was physically demanding and immensely satisfying.

Wrestling the stones from the creek to my yard, I hatched a thought both common-sensical and strange: the stones that I lifted, hauled and relocated, had lain in that creekbed since at least two, maybe three or four Ice Ages ago.

When the most recent Ice Age ended, the glaciers, after scooping out Lake Erie, descended another 75 miles, covering the northern third of present-day Ohio.

Contrariwise, the rocks in the topsoil and creekbeds around Cincinnati, in southwestern-most Ohio, were deposited by the glaciers of earlier Ice Ages. A mile thick, they, bulldozed unimaginable masses of earth and rock before them as they made their way this far south, stopping their advance at the Ohio River Valley. Kentucky, just across the River, is unglaciated. That’s why it’s so hilly.

The stones I handled were lying in that creek bed a thousand years ago when the Mound Builders flourished here on the banks of the Little Miami, into which the creek drains. Since then, a thousand spring freshets moved ‘my’ rocks only a little way downstream.

Ten thousand years ago, Mammoth Hunters, crossing that little stream, would have found their footing on some of the same rocks I gathered and brought home with the help of my Honda’s internal combustion engine, a technological advance beyond their dreams. Standing on opposite sides of that little stream, a band of Mammoth Hunters and I, could we have communicated at all?

I set to music a poem by Archibald MacLeash, “What Any Lover Learns,” about flowing water pressing upon stone:

Water is heavy silver over stone.
Water is heavy silver over stone's
Refusal. It does not fall. It fills. It flows
Every crevice, every fault of the stone,
Every hollow. River does not run.
River presses its heavy silver self
Down into stone and stone refuses.

What runs,
Swirling and leaping into sun, is stone's
Refusal of the river, not the river.

Later, I expanded the song into the fourth movement of “Anecdotes & Reflections,” a concertino for violin, clarinet, cello and piano.

After the clarinet’s ruminative introduction, the aural image of a creek flowing over stones begins at 1:25. The pianist’s right hand plays a rippling figure, glittering and golden, while the cello darkly evokes the depth of the stream, “singing” the words: “Water is heavy silver over stone.” The glistening sheen of the violin answers the cello, in canon, while the pianist’s left hand evokes the moveless rocks’ “refusal” of the current.

The clarinet’s introduction, compressed into a single phrase, recurs at 2:42, closing the movement.

To hear the Mirecourt Trio (violinist Ken Goldsmith, cellist Terry King and pianist John Jensen and clarinetist Craig Olzenak) expertly performing the first movement of “Anecdotes and Reflections,” click on the link above.

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

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One of you recently emailed me:

<< I have noticed something consistent in your music, almost like a signature. It's that four-note descending figure, most prominent I think in your “Anecdotes & Reflections.” How did it come to you and why is it so prevalent in your works?
I have played a handful of your pieces, listened to dozens more, and if I had to pick your music out of a crowd by style alone, that four-note motif would seal the deal instantly if I was at all unsure. >>

He’s right. There IS a certain four-note shape out of which grew a great deal of the music I wrote in the middle of my career.

If I could play that shape for you on piano, I’m pretty sure you’d be enthralled.

Do you recall, when you were little, holding a glass marble very close to your eye and then tilting your head toward the sky to view the brightly illumined little universe inside? I remember one particular marble -- a "boulder" as we used to call the big ones -- it was a rich indigo blue, marbleized with creamy-white stripes. Looking inside, I was amazed; it was a glimpse of infinity. When I see photos of galaxies and nebulae I remember what I felt when I peered inside that marble.

For me this little four-note musical shape was like that marble. Every time I peered 'inside' it, possibilities opened.

My friend is right; it is “like a signature,” as when a painter signs a painting with a squiggle of red letters in the right hand corner: MONET. The little shape functions exactly thus at the very end of both of the "Two Self-Portraits" that comprise my Trio #8 for clarinet, cello and piano. It's my way of inserting an autograph into the very body of the music.

Too, the little shape is a musical genome; it contains my DNA, in so far as it is, at once, French and American, an indication of my ancestry and cultural heritage.

Played forwards, backwards, right-side-up or upside-down, it is mysterious, sensual, blues-y. It is imbued with tension because it yearns with equal passion to move in opposite directions on the circle of fifths. In the example I gave above, it seems to indicate an A7 chord with a flatted fifth, which wants to resolve to a D major chord in the circle of fifths. It could function just as persuasively as an E flat 7 chord with a flatted fifth, which would yearn to resolve to an A flat major chord.

It’s the post planted at a fork in the road; the signs that are nailed to it point, to destinations that are diametrically opposed on the circle of fifths. Think of that circle as the face of a o-clock and imagine that a time machine could, at a moment’s notice, transport you either to noon or 6 p.m. This four-note shape can do the musical equivalent of that on the circle of fifths..

To me the shape seems alive, humane, because — have you noticed? — we humans are also sometimes drawn with equal passion to move in opposing directions. Music is a metaphor! If music did not offer up metaphors of our experience of life, we would give it no more thought than we give to traffic noises.

The shape's first three notes are pentatonic, expressing certitude, purity and simplicity, but the fourth note introduces the ambiguous tritone, casting a shadow of about the assertions of those first three notes. They are lulling and cozy; the fourth note is the ‘wrong’ note, chromatic, sensual, jazzy, sinister, comical, problematic; its trajectory aims “outside the box.” The first three notes cheer on the faithful husband, solid and dependable, respectable if a bit stodgy. The fourth note turns his head; he is not incognizant of dimples, hazel eyes and long, chestnut hair. Take care, friend!

The fourth note is like a thimbleful of grenadine dropped into a beaker of clear water — clear, that is, until fourth note tinges is, clouds it, infuses it with the the smoky, spreading influence of the contents of said thimble.

When I hummed that four-note shape, beginning on each degree of a major or minor scale — descending from the “do,” the “re,” the “mi,” etc. -- melodies sprang into being. It was as if, hiking, thirsty and hot, on a hard scrabble mountain side, I had discovered a series of miraculous springs.

The shape was particularly helpful at pivotal moments, the “seams” that separate the tunes and sections of a piece of music. When I felt I’d lingered almost too long in one tonality or musical space, the shape was always handy, ready at a moment’s notice to catapult the music to another tonality or space that would feel new and fresh.

Other associations arise from their status as the first four notes of a descending “Blues” scale, or the last four notes if the scale is ascending. Either way, even a fragment of the scale has a jazzy sound. But I didn’t come upon while playing or listening to jazz ...

Years ago, I attended a concert of contemporary choral music in which one of the pieces featured this intriguing four-note shape. I can’t recall the piece’s title and composer’s name; I didn’t even much like the piece because it scarcely sampled the enormous potential I heard in that four-note shape. Still, the seed was planted.

Years later a friend pointed out that the same four-note shape occurs, just once, in the “Two Pictures” by Bartok. I listened and, sure enough, there it is. But I had been exploring the potentialities of the shape for about fifteen years by then and had never heard that Bartok piece. I did not borrow it from Bartok.

I didn’t find it. It found me and at the just right time. In my twenties and early thirties, I developed a vibrant, pastoral style, evocative of the Ohio countryside and the quiet village life I’d known. By my mid-thirties I had come to feel that “my" style was than less honest to what I was actually feeling. I felt I was plagiarizing myself, writing “the sort of music Rick Sowash would write” rather than writing music that truly expressed my experience.

But when I tried to force alien, non-pastoral elements into my music, such as diminished seventh chords or weird modes or asymmetrical rhythms, the result was ‘phonus bolonus.’ Rather than abandoning my pastoral style altogether, I longed to find a door through it, leading to something on the far side.

That four-note shape proved to be the mysterious little door I sought.

At 41 minutes, the entire “Anecdotes & Reflections” is my longest work and my most extended exploration of that four-note shape. Today I invite you to listen to just the first movement. It begins with a repeated “A” thumping energetically in the low piano. Then the clarinet enters with the first statement of the four-note shape, the first of hundreds that will recur and be developed throughout the work's six movements.

To hear the Mirecourt Trio (violinist Ken Goldsmith, cellist Terry King and pianist John Jensen) and clarinetist Craig Olzenak's exuberant rendition of the first movement of “Anecdotes and Reflections,” click on the link above.

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

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For me, one hallmark of great art is that it achieves a reconciliation of opposites. In musical art, this comes down to contrasts in the musical elements that are used in a given piece.

Opposites are the very stuff of music -- high-low, slow-fast, loud-soft, short-long, major-minor, jagged-smooth, neighboring vs. distant positions on the Circle of Fifth … and so on.

How different can the contrasting music be? How much of a contrast will listeners tolerate? How far can the opposites diverge? Is there a limit? Where is the line?

What about differences in musical STYLE? What if a Joplin-esque ragtime was plopped down into the middle of a Bach-like fugue? What if a soaring Puccini-like melody ascended from the middle of a Sousa-like march? What if thumping, Zorba-esque, Eastern European style music gave way to music reminiscent of the folk hymns of the American South?

I didn’t devise these examples at random. I’ve tried them all and others equally far-fetched. Why not? It’s been fun.

The freedom artists have enjoyed since Modernism seized the public’s imagination a dozen decades ago has allowed stylistic experimentations that would have been inconceivable for earlier artists. Except for the unfortunate Russians constrained by the policies of the Soviet propagandists, composers have been at liberty to push the notion of stylistic contrast as far as they wish. As we Americans say, “It’s a free country.”

The fifth movement of my “Anecdotes & Reflections,” a suite for violin, clarinet, cello and piano, begins and closes with a wistful, elegant, stately music that gives way to a raucous, Tin Pan Alley-style, quasi-Broadway tune … and back again.

I hope to share this music with you today but first I will tell you a story ...

A young composer sent me an mp3 recording and the score of a piece he had written, asking my opinion of the music.

I’m glad to share with composers what I have figured out about the career aspects of the profession. I have a lot to offer in response to queries such as, “How do I get my music performed? How can I get my music recorded and broadcast on classical music radio stations? Shall I publish my own scores or try to find a ‘real’ publisher? Shall I produce my own CDs or try to find a ‘real’ record label?”

But I dislike being asked to pronounce upon the quality of the music itself. Who am I to judge someone’s music? Who is anyone? Each of us is ‘just another listener.'

Still, I don’t want to be churlish. I admire the young composer having the pluck to ask me. When I was young, a wise man once imparted to me a simple truth: “If you don’t ask questions, you don’t get answers.”

I’ve asked a lot of questions and I am grateful to those who offered some answers. So when someone asks me questions, I feel obliged to respond.

That’s why, with a heavy sigh and a burdensome sense of obligation, I clicked on the mp3 the composer had sent me and listened.

The music began marvelously! It was light, crisp and as fresh as if it was just back from the cleaners! Syncopated, lively, delightful!

I kept listening. More light, crisp, fresh music. More lively syncopations. Then yet more. After that, more. When that was over, more. Ugh.

There was never a hint of contrast. The piece was stuck in a light, crisp, fresh little world. After about two minutes I lost all interest in it. I stuck it out to the end but my initial delight dwindled into tedium because the music never acknowledged its shadow, its opposite, its dark twin. Ought I to have pointed this out to the composer? I decided against it.

Instead I sent an encouraging reply. I told the truth: that I’d found the music to be light, crisp, fresh, lively, delightful. I let it go at that. I didn't want to be a jerk.

Here’s the thing. A piece of music begins in a certain place and then either 1) goes someplace else and eventually returns or 2) gives way to music in a different mood, key, tempo, i.e., a contrasting movement or section which must, in turn, either go someplace else and return or give way to yet another different mood, key, tempo, and so on.

When music begins in a certain place and then goes someplace else, well, the interesting question is how FAR dare it venture from where it started? If a composer goes TOO far away from where he started, will listeners find the music to be schizophrenic? Will it the movement as a whole be taken seriously? Can two extremely disparate music styles be co-mingled so that they retain their individual identities and remain true to the spirit and soul of the composer holding the pen in hand as the work comes into being?

If I were a little bolder, I’d have asked that young composer to do what I am asking YOU to do now … to listen to the fifth movement of my “Anecdotes & Reflections" for violin, clarinet, cello and piano. This piece starts in one distinct place, goes somewhere VERY different and then returns. “Different” is an understatement. No other piece or movement in all my 400 works contains such extremely opposite musics as this one.

Please, let me walk you through it. If you want to listen WHILE you are reading the following, click on the link above.
http://www.sowash.com/recordings/mp3/anec_ref.5.mp3

It begins and ends with a ten-second “frame.” Like a painting, the music is bordered, defined, enclosed by its frame.

At 0:11, the tune commences and you immediately know that you are, musically, in a particular spot. The solo piano plays a slow, wistful, mysterious dance music, repeating it fully four times, joined first by the violin, then by the violin AND the cello, finally by the violin, the cello AND the clarinet.

So far the music, though very beautiful, seems to be ’stuck’ in that place. Hopefully, it is so beautiful that you don’t mind lingering. Patience!

At 3:32 we hear “the frame” again, the one that commenced the movement.

But at 3:53 something different begins! A different key, meter, mood …

For some reason, this music has always made me think of Christmas, especially when at 4:53.

There are many ways of “going someplace else.” One is the “wrong note.”

Listen carefully at 5:21 for the very long, very high “wrong note” in the violin. It persists for so long that it finally becomes the “right note” after all!

The “Christmas” section begins to wind down at 6:21 with a calm, repetitive figure

Suddenly! at 6:59 the “Christmas” tune is utterly transformed into, of all things, an old-timey-fied, jazzy tune, reminiscent of Benny Goodman, Django Rinehart, Duke Ellington. Musically, it is the extreme opposite of where the movement started.

The jazzy section concludes beginning at 9:04 with a feeling of “One mo’ time, folks!” I picture a garish vaudeville performer singing, grimacing and waving his straw hat as he struts his stuff.

A quick transformation follows … we’re back to “Christmas” music in its original form, but now in a minor key …

Then the “frame” is heard again and at 9:47, the music returns to the sad and stately dance we heard at the beginning … but this time the jazzy tune is modified, calmed down, heard in the clarinet.

At the end, the two disparate musics embrace. The reconciliation of opposites has been achieved. We are moved and relieved. If only the dualities of life could be thus resolved. Here, in this music, for a little, we taken in a metaphor of how that would feel. We unclench.

It only remains for the “frame,” heard at 10:34, to bring closure.

To hear the Mirecourt Trio (violinist Ken Goldsmith, cellist Terry King and pianist John Jensen) and clarinetist Craig Olzenak's alternately sensitive and exuberant rendition of the fifth movement from “Anecdotes and Reflections,” click on the link above.

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