Last night was the night of the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year.

Here in Cincinnati, the sun set at about 5:15 p.m and it will rise just before 8:00 this morning. It has been a long winter night and that is the title of the piece I hope to share with you today:

“Winter Night: Homage to Sibelius.”

I admire the work of many composers, reserving my highest regard for a few. The pinnacle is reserved for Sibelius. Oh, and Beethoven. And Bach, of course.

But Beethoven is of a time distant from my own and Bach, though timeless, feels even more distant. Conversely, Sibelius was a man of my century, the 20th. When he died, in 1957, I was seven years old.

I discovered his work ten years later when Roderick Evans, a music teacher at Lexington High School in Lexington Ohio, had his students listen to the master’s Second Symphony. I was dazzled. It was the greatest music I had yet heard. I borrowed an LP of it from our community’s public library and played it many times.

Sibelius found musical gestures to evoke Nature. The rustlings of dry leaves, the moan of the wind, the hiss of freezing rain, the fulsome sighing of autumn, the burgeoning power of spring. Only one of his works has a title that refers directly to Nature -- “Tapiola” (meaning “in the realm of Tapio, god of the Forest in Finnish mythology) -- but I hear Nature expressed in all his works, even the symphonies.

After admiring his music for more than 50 years I finally, just last year, dared to try to compose an homage to his great spirit: my piece for two cellos titled “Winter Night.”

What better Sunday than this one, following hard upon the Winter Solstice, on which to share it with my friends and fans?

Listen for musical expressions of darkness and splinters of snow skittering across a frozen pond. Listen for the sudden violence of an ice-laden bough dropping from a tree and crashing to the forest floor.

Listen, too, for a hymn of praise and gratitude. Bear in mind Sibelius’ great hymn-tune, “Finlandia,” which I tried to emulate. Mine, sincere as it is, falls short; how could it not?

Sometimes the intent counts for more than the result.

Remember the wise and kindly words of Ralph Vaughan Williams, who dedicated his own Fifth Symphony to his friend Sibelius: “There are only a few great composers but there can be many sincere composers.”

To hear my cellist friends Nora Barton and Michael Ronstadt performing “Winter Night,” click on the link above.

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