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| 2016/04/11 23:47:37瀏覽103｜回應0｜推薦3 | |
| Sowash: Trio #2 for clarinet, cello and piano, “Enchantment of April.” Written specifically for three French musicians who call themselves "les Gavottes,” the music was intended to have a French inflection. I think it could serve as the film score for one of those sweet, little French movies, shot in Paris, about shy people falling in love. Interestingly, les Gavottes took to this music because, to them, this sounded so American! I remember Lucien, the clarinetist, saying, as we listened to their recording of the work, “This part always makes me think of the American West!”, pantomiming a galloping cowboy, reins in one hand, waving an imaginary hat with the other. I laughed with him, but what I hear is the French influence. I guess the music is best described as Franco-American. I fell in love with the French language when I was 20, the result of an intense, summer-long affair — a ten-week immersion course at Ohio State University. (Don’t get me wrong!) Like any twenty-something, I yearned to visit Paris. But as the years passed, other priorities obviated the possibility. College, then career, children, mortgage payments, the usual stuff. Then one day (as storytellers say), I received a letter from a Parisian clarinetist, Jean-Noel Martin, requesting the sheet music for works he’d heard on a CD recording of my music which he’d found at a Paris record store. Remember record stores? I sent him the music for free and we became pen-pals. I'd write to him in French; he'd reply in English, practicing our second languages. This was before e-mail. Remember letters? After two years he invited me to come over. I was thrilled! Jean-Noel met me at Charles DeGaulle airport and squired me back to his tiny apartment to show me how things worked there. He moved out, stayed with a friend during my eleven-day visit, letting me use his flat. All for free. Un ami si bon! His apartment was tiny; the bed occupied two-thirds of the floor space. It was on the fifth floor of a classic old Parisian apartment buildings. There was no elevator. The toilet-closet was down the hall, shared by the floor’s other tenants. The hallway light switch was timed to turn itself off after 90 seconds; unless you could find a light switch again, you made the return journey from the toilet-closet in pitch darkness. The apartment had a tiny sink, a two-burner hot plate, a refrigerator the size of a waste-basket, a tiny desk, and book shelves on every inch of the walls. Its one window, viewless, looked out only upon the building’s opposite wing. I loved everything about it! I didn’t see much of Jean-Noel after the first day; he had his job, lessons to teach, rehearsals to attend. In two or three brief rendezvous, he gave me written lists of suggested activities and sites to visit with directions, things to seek out, notice, appreciate. Every day, I walked and walked and walked, exploring as many neighborhoods as possible. I was 41 by that time, but in good shape. Even so, there were afternoons when my tired legs forced me back to the apartment, just to put up my feet and rest, poring over guide books the while. Paris was marvelous, exhilarating. The architecture, cafés, parks, museums, monuments, people, the Metro, the beautiful language. Things ‘clicked’ for me, dozens of times, every day. I stumbled upon a street named the Rue Nicot. A little sign explained that it was named for Jean Nicot who introduced tobacco to the French, presenting it to the queen mother, Catherine de Medici, a cure for her migraines. Fashionable people took up the practice and Nicot became a celebrity. Thus originated the word ... “nicotine.” I’ve always hated smoking, but this was fascinating. it’s one example of how my understanding of things large and small was expanded by a myriad of minute discoveries made daily in Paris. I became obsessed with a desire to return … and I’ve managed to get back to France seven times since that first visit in 1991. Sometimes alone, sometimes with wife and children, sometimes with friends. La Belle France has enriched my life, immensely. And inspired me, too. Perhaps my affection and gratitude is expressed in this Franco-American music. See what you think. To hear les Gavottes’ exquisite rendering of the third movement from my Trio #2 for clarinet, cello and piano, “Enchantment of April,” click here: http://www.sowash.com/ To see a PDF of the score, click here: http://www.sowash.com/ |
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| ( 興趣嗜好｜其他 ) |
