In the Impressionists Gallery of the Cincinnati Art Museum, where I was as a museum guard for eight years, there are two paintings by Alfred Sisley and one by Frédéric Bazille.

The Sisleys are tranquil landscapes, a river in the foreground, a village half-way back, a joyful sky rendered in shades of pale green, pink, lavender, cream and dusty blue.

Sisley must have loved “inventing” the sky. Consider. As he painted, outdoors, the river and village just sat there before him, unchanging, in no hurry to be captured in paint. But the skies were always changing, leaving him at liberty to devise whatever sky he wanted to fashion above his quiet river and his sleeping village. He indulged his fancy and concocted some of the most joyful skies ever seen on canvas, at least by the undersigned.

The CAM’s painting by Bazille is mysterious and unfinished, like Bazille himself. A woman sits on a bench at the edge of a garden; a beckoning path recedes into a surprising depth, suggesting undeveloped potential, an unknowable future, a journey only contemplated, never undertaken.

The woman and the bench are transparent; mere outlines; you can see right through them to the garden behind. Is the painting unfinished or did Bazille intend to indicate only the outline of the woman? Is she a ghost?

Bazille’s story doesn’t answer these questions; it certainly enriches them. A painter of great talent, close friends with Monet, Renoir, Sisley, he was killed at the age of 28, heroically leading a charge in the Franco-Prussian War.

When he painted that strange garden scene he didn’t know that his life would soon be cut short. When we look at it today, we cannot help imagining that the beckoning path is emblematic of the future he might have pursued, the potential he might have realized; the ghostly figure is perhaps the partner with whom he might have found a lasting fulfillment.

For me, despite the garden's rich greens and robustly colorful flowers, it’s a sad painting, a lament for all the young talents taken away too soon by War and for the veterans who returned but who had lost their way and were never the same. My father, for one.

The last movement of my Impressionist Suite #2 for reed trio is entitled “Sisley & Bazille: Joyful Skies and a Lament for the Fallen.”

You’ll hear Sisley’s joyful skies right off, the closest I could get, musically, to what Sisley expressed so cheerfully in paint. Exactly two minutes in, the mood shifts from joyful to sad as I try, beginning at 2:30, to put into notes the sense of loss we feel, standing before a soldier's grave.

At 4:15, we lift our eyes from the grave and there, again, is the sky. Sisley’s sky. So happy after all, smiling down on us. And, through our tears, we smile back, in spite of everything.

To hear this movement played — perfectly! beautifully! -- by oboist Mark Ostoich, clarinetist Ron Aufmann and bassoonist Mark Ortwein, click on the link above.

To see the score, click on the link above.

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
May 29, 2016

🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶

Imagine this New Year as a baby posed on its mother’s lap in a painting by Mary Cassatt.

What music for such a moment? A lullaby, of course.

Infants need sleep. We all do, especially these days. Waking hours are tense and, come night, sleep can be elusive. A lullaby says, “Sleep.”

When hit the sack I am calmed by thinking about this: from now on, Cincinnati’s toddlers will be guaranteed a pre-school education thanks to our citizenry having voted to increase our property taxes to pay for it.

Among American cities, Cincinnati has the second-highest rate of childhood poverty. Last November 8 we did something to turn around that shameful statistic. We were told that a strong pre-school experience wings the impoverished child upward; the child’s trajectory into the future is aimed higher. We were told that when positive patterns of learning and social behavior are established early on, the children harvest much more in subsequent school years, preparing them for an ascendant life. A majority of Cincinnatians saw the sense of these assertions and voted accordingly.

I am so happy about this, so proud of our city. We did something unselfish, purely because it was the right thing to do. We set aside conservative self-interest, the usual knee-jerk antipathy to higher taxes, and we did something great.

Good for us!

It’s one of the many phenomena that fall well below the national news radar, the sort of thing a friend had in mind when she wrote to say that, despite recent events, she remains "at least somewhat hopeful that we’ll be pulled through by the many people of this country who contribute to their communities each day in quiet ways."

Can individuals or communities or even large-scale movements slow the devastation that is in store for our state, our country and the world? The rich and powerful are surely laughing at the prospect of whatever resistance we might muster.

For example, our governor just signed into law a bill forbidding any Ohio municipality the liberty to raise the minimum wage. Does our state have the power to do that? Apparently so. Why would our lawmakers impose such a restriction? Mask it how they will, it’s only to keep the rich rich, the poor poor and themselves in power.

Still, if only for the sake of our mental health, we must try to ameliorate new laws like that one (and the far worse national and global catastrophes soon to come) by doing a little good, in a small way, close to home. It is an alternative to despair, to hugging our belongings while things crumble.

Artists are particularly powerless before political onslaughts. Clout-less, they cannot sway. Wealth-less, they cannot bribe with campaign contributions. Like any citizen, an artist can protest; I have done my share of protesting and will soon do plenty more.

Mainly, artists just do their work, though it rarely makes much sense as a response to the current events of their time.

Mary Cassatt’s quiet depictions of mothers and infants did nothing to avert the horrors of the century that followed. The little lullaby I wrote in homage to Miss Cassatt won’t have any effect either.

No mere work of art will swerve the attacks on the vulnerable that are slated to commence in precisely twenty days, nor the concomitant showering of benefits on the most well-off at the expense of tens of millions. What melody could protect the health of our countrymen or the well-being of our environment? What tune could put uncorked hatreds back in the bottle? What song could forestall the coming wars?

Wars? He said: “I love war.” Other people’s children will die, not his.

Still, listening to my Lullaby, my homage to Cassatt, you might find respite, a temporary unclenching, a beneficial calm, a kind of wakeful sleep.

It may be scant comfort, considering what is coming, but it’s what one artist has to offer.

To hear a tender rendering of Mary Cassatt's lullaby movement from my Impressionist Suite #2, played by oboist Mark Ostoich, clarinetist Ron Aufmann and bassoonist Mark Ortwein, click on the link above.

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

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
January 1, 2017

🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶

One day when I was at my post as a guard at the Cincinnati Art Museum, a solid woman approached me with a purposeful stride.

“Where’s the ART?” she demanded.

“Ma’am, you’re in the Asian gallery. This is where we display the art of Asia.”

“This is flea market stuff,” she said. “I wanna see some Art.”

“You mean paintings?”

“Yeah, that’s right. Paintings. Statues. In other words, Art.”

Hoo boy.

That job expanded my horizons.

Did you know that some museum-goers attach their depreciated chewing gum to furniture, the undersides of drinking fountains and even onto the frames of paintings?

Did you know that they leave coins on the carved hands, arms, feet and garments of sculptures?

Did you know they yank open the drawers of Louis XVI-era armoires? and are at a loss to know what to do when their children climb onto a hand-carved, Victorian-era bedstead?

Neither did I.

One lady, perusing the descriptive paragraph posted alongside a painting, mistook the identification number for a price tag. “You paid this much for this painting?” she snorted. “There goes our tax dollars, down the drain, as per usual.” I assured her that the support the museum enjoyed was entirely private and voluntary. She gave me a look.

A man asked me to tell him how to find the nearest restroom. I did. Less than a minute later he came marching back with a menacing air. “You messin’ with me?” he said. I assured him that had not been my intention. Abandoning my post, I led him to the restroom.

A woman sidled up to me and, in hushed tones, said, “Now these are all copies, right? I mean, they’re not the actual paintings.”

I assured her that all the art on display was genuine.

“Oh come on. Some of these have to be copies.”

I repeated my assurance.

“Look,” she said, a little louder. "This is an art museum, right? Which means that, somewhere in here, you gotta have the Mona Lisa. Now it’s gotta be a copy, right? I mean, you’re not going to tell me that you have the actual Mona Lisa here.”

“No, Ma’am, I wouldn’t tell you that.”

“Well then!” she huffed, vindicated, stomping off.

A family stood before a depiction of St. Sebastian dying, shot full of arrows. “Look kids,” said the father, solemnly pointing to the painting. “It’s George Armstrong Custer!"

After seating her tour group of First Graders on the floor at her feet, a docent positioned herself beside Robert Blum’s painting, “The Silk Merchant,” and asked, “Who can tell me where silk comes from?”

One little girl waved her hand. The docent nodded at her. “It comes from SHEEP!” the girl cried, triumphantly.

“No, sweetheart,” said the docent. “You’re thinking of COTTON!”

??

Such moments provide the museum guard with an opportunity to practice spiritual discipline, struggling to refrain from rolling his eyeballs or bursting out in laughter.

Fortunately, the guard is surrounded by patient mentors; to wit, the paintings, silently staring down from the walls. Dignified, passive, handsome, they have endured human folly, some for centuries.

Consider the works of Gustave Caillebotte. He is the least remembered of the original French Impressionists, perhaps because he valued clarity, precision and muted tones while the rest were busy capturing light with hastily applied brush-strokes and the colors so enjoyed by cherishers of jelly beans.

I wrote two suites for reed trio, trying to depict the spirit and character of seven of those painters.

The second movement from my Impressionist Suite #2 evokes the style of Monsieur Caillebotte. To hear it played — beautifully! — by oboist Mark Ostoich, clarinetist Ron Aufmann and bassoonist Mark Ortwein, click on the link above.

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

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
February 19, 2017

🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶

[ Please read the P.S. at the bottom for an update on my big recording project. ]

One month ago, we celebrated Christmas by rallying our small family in the great city of Chicago for four days. Our son moved there permanently back in June and put us up at his apartment. Our daughter and son-in-law flew in from Wash DC to join us. One of the highlights of our stay was a day-long visit to the Chicago Art institute.

One of the highlights there was Mary Cassatt’s marvelous 1893 painting, “The Child’s Bath.” Many shades of blue move across that quiet, magical canvas.

It is not a sentimental painting. For me, it brings to my mind the influence of Degas and Cassatt’s position relative to the other Impressionists. Memories of bathing our own children are secondary. And yet the subject is affecting: a mother quietly and dutifully tending to her child.

The painting also prompts me to ponder what was happening outside the little room where the scene is set, what was happening up and down the street, in the arrondissement, in the city of Paris, in France, in Europe.

We know what was happening. Europe was arming itself as the nations raced to claim colonies abroad, to bolster empires.

Yet here is one mother bathing her child, an intimate moment in a troubling larger landscape.

What music for such a moment? Something soft and slow. A lullaby would serve.

Mary Cassatt’s quiet depictions of mothers and infants did nothing to avert the horrors unleashed two decades later when “The Great War” began.

Nor will the little lullaby I wrote in homage of Miss Cassatt have any effect on what darkness might be in store for us in coming decades.

No mere painting or piece of music will blunt the attacks on the vulnerable nor taper the concomitant showering of lucre on the most well-off and at the expense of the rest of us.

What melody, however moving, could protect the well being of our families or the health of our environment? What tune could put uncorked hatreds back in the bottle? What song could close the lid of Pandora’s box or forestall the coming violence?

One way or another we humans are always in a pickle and our immediate future will be no different. It doesn’t take a seer to foresee that!

Still, listening to my modest Lullaby, my homage to Cassatt, reality might be momentarily improved for you. You might be induced to a reposeful state of mind, a beneficial calm, a kind of wakeful sleep that refreshes the soul … not unlike a nap on a winter afternoon.

To hear a tender rendering of Mary Cassatt's lullaby movement from my Impressionist Suite #2, played by oboist Mark Ostoich, clarinetist Ron Aufmann and bassoonist Mark Ortwein, click on the link above.

There's also a link to a PDF of the score.

I'd love to know what you think about this music; reply if you're inclined. But please don't feel that you are expected to reply. I'm just glad to share my work in this way.

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.

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
Jan. 26, 2025

P.S.

A friend told me, “Only you can do this project -- but you can’t do it alone.”

Ten days ago I asked my friends and fans to contribute toward the cost of recording about 500 minutes of music I’ve written in the last two years. Over the past six months, we’ve gotten about 200 minutes of it “in the can” and are eager to record the rest. The musicians are recruited, the studio engaged. What’s needed is cash to fuel the process.

42 of you have responded so far, contributing over $10,000. Thank you!

It’s a huge boost and about half of the amount needed.

Please consider sending a contribution. Over the next few years, you will hear these recordings when featured in these free Sunday emails.

It’s like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY City. Admission is free but there is a suggested contribution. I think it was $32 last time we were there. Paying that much for Jo and me both comes to more than I can afford but I chipped in a comfortable amount.

Like the Met, my work is free to anyone to discover and enjoy … but recording is expensive and “I can’t do it alone.”

Contributing via Paypal, use my email address: rick@sowash.com.
For Venmo, my username is: @rick-sowash.
Or send a good old check to me at:
6836 School Street, Cincinnati, OH 45244.

Thank you!