Sowash: final movement of Concerto for Cello with Strings & Clarinet.

Our son, Chapman, 31, is my favorite guy.  On his Facebook page, he advises his friends:  “Be an interesting Cincinnatian” and he practices what he preaches.  An extraordinarily versatile trombonist, he has made numerous tours of America and Europe with a variety of bands.  Here in Cincinnati, he’s the co-founder of the Hot Magnolias, the Queen City’s chief exponent of traditional New Orleans jazz.  But he also plays with several other bands, 'local and beyond,’ in styles ranging through reggae, ska, rockabilly, Dixieland, soul and funk.  He’s making his fourth European tour next month as a guest trombonist with The Toasters, a famous ska band.

He’s written only a few songs, but they are strong.  The Blues song he wrote and played at my mother-in-law’s funeral brought tears to our eyes.  His ska tune is entitled “Higher Ground” and was recorded by another band he helped to found, The Pinstripes.  I liked the opening tune of “Higher Ground" so much that I made it the recurring theme in the joyful, exuberant "Finale" movement of my cello concerto.  I want to share that movement with you today.

At the website listed below, you’ll hear Chap's tune immediately, catchy and compelling, played by the brass.  Take in at least the first thirty seconds so that when you listen to the “Finale" concerto movement, posted below, you’ll see how it was adapted.  Here are The Pinstripes playing Chap’s tune “Higher Ground”:

http://www.sowash.com/

Since the tune is the style of ska, the tempo of the “Finale" movement of my concerto is indicated as "Tempo di ska.”  The opening three measures establish the beat, the key and the feel.  Then the solo cello renders Chap’s tune, somewhat as you heard it in “Higher Ground.”  The same, yet not the same.

Next, right quick, the clarinet plays tune as a trickster might, ornamented and sassy, an octave higher than the cello you just heard and with jazz and Klezmer inflections.

Thus, the clarinet immediately establishes itself as a rival to the cello.  It’s a theatrical device.  Sometimes the clarinet steals the spotlight from the solo cello.  At other times the clarinet supports the cello’s solo role.  At still other times the clarinet retreats, a pale color amid the strings sound.

It’s a metaphor.  The clarinet is the piece’s only wind instrument and the only black instrument in the ensemble.  All the other instruments are strings, the color of varnished wood.  The clarinet is the outsider — or is he?.  It’s as if the clarinet is the black man in majority white society or a Jew in Christendom.  What is the difference between merely being present and truly belonging?  What does it mean to belong?  Doesn’t it come down to having one’s contributions accepted and appreciated by the majority?

Consider that ska was created by Jamaicans, jazz and the blues by African-Americans and Klezmer by Jews.  And here is our clarinet friend, in this concerto, evoking ska, jazz and Klezmer.  See what’s happening?  But, here, in this work, the clarinet is not an outsider, not a “black sheep,” because in this work those ‘outsider’ minority musical traditions are reconciled with classical European traditions.

How?  At 2:15 the music abruptly, unexpectedly turns 18th-century, Viennese.  With almost no modulation, there are improbable changes:  to a new key -- G minor — and a new meter -- 6/8.  We’ve visited this world many times before.  It brings images to mind of musicians in frock coats, knee stockings and powdered wigs.  It’s the world of Haydn.

What happened to Chap’s ska tune?  It’s still there but hidden, played pizzicato in the lower register by the cellos and basses.

But the main action here constitutes an homage to Haydn.  Why Haydn?.  Because he so effectively reconciled humor with nobility and surprise with architectural integrity.   That’s what I’m trying to do in this concerto.  The Haydn-esque section is both an homage and a joke but I don’t think Papa Haydn would be offended;  no one loved a musical joke better than he.

About 3:24 the music picks up speed and starts to cook again.  By 3:41 it’s really goin’ to town and sounds, to me, like it might have been a hit song from one of George M. Cohan’s old-fashioned Broadway musicals.

The tunes are developed and expanded and at 5:19 comes the movement’s climax, when the cello descends from a high A and lands in the unanticipated key of Eb major.  This new key is the extreme opposite of A major, the key in which the movement and the entire concerto are cast.

This brief venture into Eb major reconciles the opposing extremes of the circle of fifths, echoing the reconciliation of musical styles and traditions that is attempted throughout.  The chugging 16th-notes in the strings in this section always prompt me to imagine a little locomotive, flying down the tracks.  For me, this section recalls the fun and silliness of Leroy Anderson’s wonderful little tone poems.  You might call it “The Little Engine Who Could."

But the piece doesn’t end there.   The moment for another big cello cadenza is prepared but the cellist abandons the attempt, playing instead a sort of “anti-cadenza.”  Instead of a flashy virtuoso display, the cello simply plays a little figure on the A string with the open D string sounding underneath.  The figure is short and it gets shorter each time the cellist plays it, gradually releasing the energy that had nearly reached the bursting point; after our little locomotive just about burst its boiler, this "anti-cadenza" gradually releases the steam.

Now comes one last quiet surprise:  the tenderness of the cello.  Using its delicate middle strings, the cello plays a plagal cadence, like the “Amen” at the end of a hymn, returning at last to the solemn, heartfelt hymnody that began the opening movement, twenty minutes earlier.  The cello affirms:  "Joyfulness can be funny, yes, even rambunctious … but also, at the end of the day, an expression of the Sacred."

All the opposites presented in the work -- opposites of mood, style, key, genre, the clash of the solo cello and his rival, the clarinet -- are reconciled at last and the concerto ends in quiet dignity.

To hear the final movement of my Concerto for Cello with Strings & Clarinet, performed by cellist Kalin Ivanov, clarinetist Jonathan Jones and the strings of the Las Colinas Symphony Orchestra under Maciej Zoltowski, click here:
http://www.sowash.com/

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