I sent the first of these weekly emails to friends and fans five years ago today. I began with a list of about 80 recipients, mostly friends from church and from the community here in Cincinnati, plus a few fans of my music who live elsewhere.

As you know, each message ends like this:
"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 can email me at rick@sowash.com, sending just one word: "Yes." I'll know what it means.”

You kindly forwarded my messages to friends. Thanks to you, many of your friends have emailed me saying “Yes.” Now my weekly messages go out to almost 700 recipients, located all over the world.

After I wrote my Trio #8 for Clarinet, Cello & Piano, subtitled “Two Self-Portraits,” I decided to portray some friends in my Trio #9, subtitled “Five Women.”

The first movement depicts my cellist friend Bernice, an Englishwoman. Bernice is merry and mystical, a rare combination. She brims with good humor, has a ready laugh, a warm smile, a twinkle in her eye. You don’t expect someone so cheery and chirpy to be in such frequent contact with the spirit world. Bernice is.

Just last Monday we met at a café for coffee and not twenty minutes had passed before she told me about receiving counsel from her late, beloved husband, John. She said that a few days before she was looking at the grand view of the Ohio River she has from her apartment and suddenly found herself missing John sorely, her eyes misting with tears. Suddenly, she heard a deep voice, right there in the room with her, unmistakably her husband's. “Get on with living, Bernice,” said the voice.

“It was just the sort of thing John would say,” she told me. “A brusque, manly sort of a remark. And he was right. It was good advice. I’m sure it was him!”

What can one say? I smiled and nodded. We went on to other subjects.

Bernice, merry and mystical.

To hear “Bernice” from my Trio #9 for clarinet, cello and piano, subtitled "Five Women," played by clarinetist Laurel Bennet, cellist Teresa Villani and pianist Carol Alexander, (the musicians who recorded it on my CD “Winds of May”), click on the link above.

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

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This message is longer than usual, because I have two stories to tell, confluent in a single piece of music.

Both took place in France and in French.

* * * * * * * * *

I wrote thirteen trios for clarinet, cello and piano; I’ve written more works for that combination of instruments than for any other.

Why? because the clarinet and the cello are my favorite instruments and because I had the encouragement of ‘les Gavottes,’ a trio of Frenchmen who play those instruments.

The fact that les Gavottes were French inspired me, too. My ancestors were French, I speak and teach French, I’ve visited France eight times. The French flag flies alongside Old Glory on my front porch. I love France!

When les Gavottes' recording of the first three of my trios was released, I flew to France to be on hand for a concert featuring the works and an ‘unveiling’ of the new CD. I had already enjoyed a long friendship with the clarinetist; now I struck up new friendships with the cellist and the pianist.

The three musicians and their wives / significant others celebrated with a post-concert dinner party in the home of the cellist. My French friends, new and old, were easy and amiable; they took care to help me feel that I was, truly, the Guest of Honor.

Our spirits were high; the conversation flowed, as did the wine.

My French is pretty strong but, for my sake, they probably made some effort to limit their vocabulary and the complexity of their sentences, at least when speaking with me. Though the evening was passed entirely in French, I never felt left out. Still, knowing keen acuity would be required if I hoped to participate in the conversational 'flow of soul,’ I limited my intake of the noble wine served by our host.

The other guests did not so limit themselves. Midnight passed; the party was going strong. My longtime friend, Lucien, the clarinetist, opined that this new CD of my music would be the making of all of us; it would establish our reputations around the world; fame, glory and wealth would soon be showered upon us.

Having drunk less wine than Lucien, I felt that this exuberant expression needed a bit of tempering. However heartfelt, It was, after all, only one little recording in a very large world. I remarked that experience had taught me to temper my expectations.

“Mais tu es pessimiste!” cried Lucien, half-joking.

“Non,” I replied. “Au contraire! Je suis optimiste qui n’est pas arrivé!”

(My French friends didn’t know it, but I was quoting, albeit in French, Mark Twain’s response to the same accusation; he said, "I am an optimist who did not arrive.”)

French people prize a witty remark especially when it comes from someone who has shown they love the French language and are trying their best to utilize it in a conversation.

“Bravo! Bravo!” my friends shouted, laughing and raising their glasses in a spontaneous toast, joyfully repeating my bon mot, “Un optimiste qui n’est pas arrivé!”

That was a moment to remember, to have gotten off a bon mot at a French dinner party, the summit of my linguistic adventures in French.

* * * * * * * * *

And now the second little story ...

When someone told the hostess at a neighborhood party that I spoke French, she excitedly introduced me to another guest, Émilie Hetru, a twenty-something French au pair employed by a family I knew slightly. We hit it off right away, bubbling along en français.

She had charm, intelligence and vitality in spades, a French 'pipterino of the first water’ (one of PG Wodehouse's many admirable phrases). Like every French woman I have met, she projected femininity.

We met for coffee from time to time, an opportunity for me to brush up my French and for her to question me about the mysteries of America and our American language.

She would ask questions like, “To be raining zee cats and dogs, what does ziss want to say?” Her pronunciation of “Turkeyfoot Road” was hilarious.

We set off bicycling one sunny morning and returned several hours later, laughing, drenched by a stray thunderstorm.

We became good friends. (Now, don’t get me wrong! I’m a faithful husband who has had the good fortune to form friendships with several wonderful women. All those friendships continue; I got a cheery email from Émilie just last week.)

When Émilie's year-long term as an au pair ended, we bade one another au revoir and she returned to France. I was sorry to see her go, but we have kept in touch.

A year or two later, in Paris to see musician friends, I took the train to Lille to see Émilie, meet her family (her parents are my age) and to pass a few days as an honored guest in their home. They welcomed me as if I was a long-lost American uncle.

One beautiful morning — and that is saying something because the weather is often very dreary au nord de la France — we set out for Bruges, a town in the Flemish regions of neighboring Belgium.

We strolled about, went for a ride in a boat on the city’s canal system, laughed together at the jokes the boat’s pilot made, then found a quiet, shaded little park near an ancient stone bridge spanning the canal and settled there to share a picnic she had prepared. It was wonderful, of course. How could it not have been? The French are serious about food. Even a cold picnic is splendid.

We dozed on the blanket afterwards; letting the wine wear off. Then we strolled some more, taking in the architecture of that amazing municipality, a living museum of the Middle Ages, perfectly preserved.

At length, the day wore away and we turned our noses toward the edge of town, where Émilie had parked the family car. She fell silent as we walked and I wondered what she was thinking. She sighed.

Then she said, in her French-accented English,

“Perfect day ... Perfect place ... Perfect man.”

I did not break the pace of my walking but my shoe soles lost contact with the pavement as I began to float, ambling up an invisible staircase. It was easy because I was weightless. The view was very nice from up there but not wanting to leave Émile alone below, I descended, after a time, back down to the street.

(just kidding, just kidding).

Delivered by such a person in such an accent on such a day in such a place, it was one of the supreme compliments of my life. I will remember it always.

I memorialized four of my closest friendships with women, along with my good wife, in my Trio #9 for clarinet, cello and piano, subtitled “Five Women,” written for les Gavottes In the scheme of the movements Jo has the place of honor: she is lovingly depicted in the third movement, the trio's keystone, as befits the woman who has been and remains the keystone of my life.

The final movement is entitled “The Vitality of Émilie.” To hear it played by the Trio da Camera (clarinetist Laurel Bennett, cellist Teresa Villani and pianist Carol Alexander), click on the link above.

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

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Consider the rapport between Beauty and Sadness.

The qualities seem mutually exclusive.

If something is beautiful, we feel joyful in perceiving it, not sad, n’est-ce pas?

At a passing glance, all that is sad seems far removed from all that is beautiful.

Twenty years ago, when we were musical partners, my friend mezzo soprano Diane Haslam was sometimes sad, always beautiful.

We have no difficulty comprehending how a person can be both beautiful and sad.

But music?

Recall the saddest music. The last movement of Tchaikovsky’s 6th symphony. Mozart’s Masonic Funeral Music. “Ridi pagliaccio.” Are these pieces what we mean when we say music is beautiful? I will risking saying no. They are well-written, deeply felt, effective and beloved. Also, I think, un-beautiful.

Ah, but now let’s indulge in the pleasure of recalling the most beautiful music.

What pieces would you list?

I’d include the "Heiliger Dankgesang” movement of Beethoven's String Quartet #15. The middle movement of Ravel’s Piano Concerto. The Adagietto of Mahler's Fifth Symphony. Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings.” Finzi’s "Eclogue.” (If you don’t know that one, google it and give it a listen!)

Each of these pieces are, I’d say, all the more beautiful because they are simultaneously so beautiful and so sad. The press of sadness is precisely what renders such music so beautiful.

Could I write music in that vein, sympathetically portraying a friend at a particularly difficult and emotionally fraught period in her life? I could try. I did my best.

I’m glad to be able to assure you that Diane moved on and is, I gather, abundantly happy and fulfilled nowadays.

That assurance was not yet forthcoming when I attempted this portrait.

To hear “Diane: Beautiful and Sad,” the fourth movement from my Trio #9 for clarinet, cello and piano, subtitled "Five Women," played by clarinetist Laurel Bennet, cellist Teresa Villani and pianist Carol Alexander, (the musicians who recorded it on my CD “Winds of May”), click on the link above.

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

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As we sit here, you and I, in our respective bubbles, enduring the daily onslaught of crises as best we can, Nature goes about her business.

Mid-August is upon us, right on schedule, despite all our crises, bringing a heightened awareness that is unique to this time of year.

James Agee says it economically: "High summer holds the earth."

Odell Shepard, a largely forgotten writer whom I admire for the musicality of his prose and the nobility of his thoughts, says it loquaciously:

"Slowly, leaf by leaf, the landscape is turning golden and ruddy, like an apple, beneath these August suns.
I can almost see the landscape change before me while I gaze. Certainly it is richer and more various in tone than when I stood here yesterday. If I am to watch the splendor of the year mount slowly through all its delicate gradations, I must be vigilant from hour to hour.
Early summer’s monotony of green has given place to the tints of maturity; brown and purple, dim orange and umber are faintly discernible along the lower slopes, and there are rare touches of scarlet from the dogwood and sumac in the thicket. The cedars far and near begin to glow with their peculiar, nameless hue. Among the solid ranks of the ferns at my feet there is here and there a frond that seems to be made of beaten gold.
Winter is a long stern conflict, spring is a brief ecstasy like first love, and autumn is sheer amazement, but late summer brings us peace."

Ah! That is writing I can admire. I could set those words to music. Maybe I should, though they are already singing the tuneless song of all good prose.

A moment of respite and a measure of peace are bestowed upon us when we open ourselves to such an expression.

Music also can be a ‘place’ of respite. Today I want to share music that eschews “the monotony of green,” taking us instead through a process of maturing, the way August does, passing through and then beyond “brown and purple, dim orange and umber and touches of scarlet.”

Much of the best music is very strictly unified. Great pieces grow from a single idea. Just one, mind you! And never stray far from the opening key! That is how music expresses “being” rather than “becoming.”

A Bach invention does not “become” as we listen to it. It already is. From the git-go, it is perfectly centered upon itself. It begins, proceeds and ends in a perfect place. It is the music of stability, certitude. it not the music of exploration and transition. It delineates invention, not re-invention.

The second movement of my Trio #9 for clarinet, cello and piano delineates re-invention. It was inspired by a friend who always grows in new directions, evolving her spirituality and her career, re-inventing herself.

As I hope you’ll hear, the music metaphorizes the process of becoming as it turns into something new, again and again, reviving, moving forward, discovering new aspects, new ‘places’ to be, harmonically, new roles to play, thematically.

This music is loquacious, not economical. Bach is economical; this music is not. Instead of developing a single subject as a fugue does or two contrasting themes as a sonata does, it offers multiple tunes that spread in unexpected directions.

It begins with a bold motif played by the clarinet and cello. The listener immediately thinks, “Oh, this is going to be one of those pieces that develops a single short motif.”

But in ms. 3, the piano responds with a contrasting motif. The listener thinks, “Oh! Two motifs. Cool.”

But then comes a theme. The listener revises his assumptions, thinking, “The opening motifs were only an introduction; THIS is the main theme.”

But then comes another theme and the listener thinks, “No, I was wrong. THIS is the actual main theme.”

But then comes yet another theme … you see? The music is reinventing itself as the movement unfolds. And there is a lot of variety among the musical materials. The second motif and one of the themes even sound a little “Arabian” to me, like a shaving that fell from the bench in the musical workshop of Rimsky-Korsakof.

One tune is particularly memorable. It’s a comely tune! A winsome tune! One of my best, I think.

You’ll happen upon it at 1:11 in the mp3 and measure 45 in the PDF.

But it’s not “the main theme.” It’s merely one of several equally important themes. Two or three themes is usually the limit in a piece of classical music but this piece begins with two motifs and then stretches on into five or six themes, depending upon how strictly one defines “theme.”

Yet it is not a free-form fantasia. The themes recur. The tune to which I directed your particular attention above is recapitulated at: 6:47, measure 240.

All the themes develop, comment upon one another and return. For all its multiplicity, it’s a ‘sonata-allegro’ form after all. Just as my friend, for all her reinvention, still remains her endearing self.

To hear “Claire” from my Trio #9 for clarinet, cello and piano, subtitled "Five Women," played by clarinetist Laurel Bennet, cellist Teresa Villani and pianist Carol Alexander, (the musicians who recorded it on my CD “Winds of May”), click on the link above.

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

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My good friend Bernice Robinson has passed at the age of 88.

She was portrayed in the opening movement of my Trio #9 for Clarinet, Cello & Piano, subtitled, “Five Women.”

Bernice, an Englishwoman, a cellist, an Episcopalian, had lived for many years in Cincinnati. Bernice was a dear friend and an ardent fan of my music and writings.

She was both merry and mystical, a rare combination. She brimmed with good humor, had a ready laugh, a warm smile, a twinkle in her eye. Somehow, you don’t expect someone so cheery to be in such frequent contact with the spirit world. She lived each day with a keen awareness of the spiritual, in both a metaphysical and supernatural sense. She took spirits for granted; they were part of her world.

One time we met at a café for coffee and she told me, in a heartfelt yet casual way, that she had recently received counsel from her late, beloved husband, John. She said that a few days before, while looking at the grand view of the Ohio River she had from her apartment window, she suddenly found herself missing her husband so sorely that her eyes misted with tears. Then she heard a deep voice, right there in the room with her, only a few feet away, unmistakably her husband's.

“Get on with living, Bernice,” said the voice.

“It was just the sort of thing John would say,” she said. “A brusque, manly sort of a remark. And he was right. It was good advice. I’m sure it was him!”

What can one say? I smiled and nodded. We went on to other subjects.

That was Bernice, merry and mystical. The memory of her is a blessing.

Once only, she talked me into accompanying her on the piano in public, something I don’t like to do and try to avoid. (I am not a musician; I’m a composer, a different thing.)

We played my Largo Religioso for cello and piano in a service at Mt. Auburn Presbyterian. The piano part is pretty easy, so I agreed. Fortunately, it was recorded and I can share it with you now in tribute to and memory of Bernice.

To hear Bernice and me playing my Largo Religioso, click on the link above.
http://www.sowash.com/recordings/mp3/bernice.mp3

To see a PDF of the score, click on the link above.
http://www.sowash.com/recordings/mp3/Largo_Relig.pdf

To hear “Bernice” from my Trio #9 for clarinet, cello and piano, subtitled "Five Women," played by clarinetist Laurel Bennet, cellist Teresa Villani and pianist Carol Alexander, (the musicians who recorded it on my CD “Winds of May”), click on the link above.

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

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A friend / fan -- like you, a recipient of these weekly emails -- suddenly and unexpectedly lost her husband this past Spring. A few days ago, she sent a remarkable email message to me, sharing what struck me as wisdom of the highest order. Playful wisdom, too! Think of that. To be expressing oneself playfully about grievous loss. Amazing.

I asked her permission to share this playful wisdom with you and she kindly assented. Here it is:

“You may get a kick out of knowing the “Vitamins” I have been taking since my husband died:

Vitamin C (Staying Connected with family and friends)
Vitamin N (Nature - as much as possible whether it be a hike, run, kayak, walk, bird call hunt or gardening);
Vitamin M (Music, of course),
Vitamin L (Keep Learning),
and the most important one of all,
Vitamin G - GRATITUDE for 45 years of an engaging, adventurous, musical, creative, stretching, thoughtful and supported life with my Pal.”

Those “vitamins” strike me as the essential ingredients of a life well lived and not only during the time after the loss of a loved one. The “vitamins” she lists are the elixir of vitality at any stage of life.

I might add two more “Vitamin C’s”: Creativity and Cooking.

Her spirited list made me think of my friend Claire, one of the most “alive” people I have known. A professional actor and voice-over artist, she is interested in just about everything, spiritually ambitious, always growing in new directions. Gifted with the knack of making friends, she has them by the hundreds.

I featured a musical portrait of Claire in my Trio #9 for clarinet, cello and piano, subtitled “Five Women.”

Because she is perpetually evolving and re-inventing herself, her movement is entitled “Claire: in the process of becoming."

As I hope you’ll hear, in this tribute to Claire the music itself is also “in the process of becoming.”

Usually I offer two themes, three tops. But in “Claire’s movement,” I feature one tune after the next in rapid succession. The music frequently changes tone and direction but in ways that feel organic and unified. (I hope.)

I think you’ll hear this music turning into something new, again and again, reviving, moving forward, discovering new aspects, new places to be, new ways of being. That’s how I hear it. See if you hear it that way, too..

To hear “Claire” from my Trio #9 for clarinet, cello and piano, subtitled "Five Women," played by clarinetist Laurel Bennet, cellist Teresa Villani and pianist Carol Alexander, (the musicians who recorded it on my CD “Winds of May”), click on the link above.

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