Sowash: 1st movement of  Trio #1  "Voyage of the Spirit” for clarinet, cello and piano.

“We are all on a voyage and none of us has arrived.”  That’s what our former pastor, Rev. Steve Van Kuiken, used to tell us.

I had that in mind in 1998, when I wrote my first trio for clarinet, cello and piano, a work that aspires to describe, musically, a spiritual journey.

A journey must have a beginning point.  The first movement is lovely, sad and mysterious, trying to reconcile resigned yearning with an intense awareness of the beauty of the world, of life.  It's 'a tall order,’ as we Midwesterners say, but that was what I was trying to achieve.  I figure, “Might as well aim for the stars!”

The second movement evokes the attempt most of us make to find meaning in Life through romantic love and, later, through nostalgia.  A crisis is reached in the third movement, when the instruments intone an “Alleluia” which was an important part of the Lutheran liturgy in the church of my boyhood.

The fourth movement starts out to be an exuberant, joyful finale.  Doubt and mystery are soon felt again; the mysterious music of the first movement recurs; indeed, the music almost stops altogether.  Only the slow, strange ruminations of the cello keep it alive.  Then Beauty, if not Certitude, is reaffirmed and the piece ends -- not with a strong, positive gesture, but with a slowing, fading, rising gesture, ambiguously suggesting both resolution and non-resolution.  It seems to say, “The music ceases, but the voyage continues."

Today, I want to share only the beautiful, strange first movement.  It is beautiful, partly because it uses harmonic progressions we remember from Bach.  His music compelled us to love them.  It is strange, partly because it is cast in 7/4, a meter which Bach, the most prolific of composers, never employed.  Also, each phrase of the tune, as you’ll hear immediately, has an odd, symmetrical structure:  four notes played first as quarter notes, then eighth notes, then sixteenth notes — and then in reverse — the next four notes are played as sixteenth notes, then eighth notes, then quarter notes.

See what you make of it.

Though I did not know it at the time, this trio, turned out to be the beginning of a much larger spiritual journey; it was the first of fifteen works I wrote for this combination of instruments, far more than I’ve written for any other combination of instruments.  I was obsessed with the possibilities inherent in combining a clarinet, a cello and a piano.  And the fifteen trios, considered as a whole, set a trajectory that culminated in my clarinet concerto, probably the best of all my works.

The Trio #1 was just the beginning.  It was my response to a request from my friend the French clarinetist Lucien Aubert and his ensemble, “les Gavottes.”  Lucien and his family live on the island of Corsica;  he kindly hosted us in his home for a five-night stay  two years ago.  What a sweet little family he has.  What a sweet home, what a sweet island.  A place of magic:  Lucien’s two little girls loved spotting how I did my corny disappearing-coin tricks.  Sometime I want to share with you another work of mine, subtitled “Memories of Corsica."

Meanwhile, to hear the first movement of my Trio #1 for clarinet, cello and piano "Voyage of the Spirit” performed by the French ensemble “les Gavottes” and recorded by them on the CD “Enchantement d’avril," click here:
http://www.sowash.com/recordings/mp3/voyage_spirit_1st_movt.mp3

To see a PDF of the score, click here:
http://www.sowash.com/recordings/mp3/voyage_spirit_1st_movt.pdf

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 should email me at rick@sowash.com, sending just one word:  "Yes."   I'll know what it means.   To unsubscribe, reply “unsubscribe.”

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
Jan. 31, 2016
www.sowash.com