Friends for Cello | and guitar, by Frank A. Wallace

Friends are those…

…who support, love, and stay by your side. Friends are those you have fun with, a great dinner, the movies, a ball game or a hike. Friends are not acquaintances on Facebook, in general, though I have made wonderful friends in far flung places through Facebook. Friends are sometimes a surprise, sometimes a disappointment. Friends don’t live on a TV show. Friends talk to you and hug you when you need – from close are far. Friends is twelve meditations for cello and guitar!

Writing Friends

I started Friends in December 2017 at the same time as Cyrcles, my Sonata # 3. One night, our young friends Aki (Akiko) and Ben came over for dinner. After they went home, I sat down to begin a short song for Aki, an inspirational young woman from Japan. It was tuneful, a little quirky, and featured a five note phrase in 5/8 derived from her full name – Akiko. But I was in the middle of a big project, and so didn’t have time to finish the piece.

I returned to Aki’s piece in early July. Soon other friends had their names on the top of a page of music. Ben appeared, and Nina, and Aaron. I realized these were people who dared to say a little extra. They called and wrote to see how I was doing after several surgeries and a bout with ocular melanoma – a rare form of eye cancer that has now metastasized throughout my body and threatens my life and my vision in one eye. I jotted down the names of others who had dared to share their souls with me and ended up with ten people. It’s not everyone who helped or sympathized, so don’t feel bad if you are not on the list!

This past winter of 2020 brought a revisit to the piece and I had the idea of adding a cello part. This was inspired by my dear friend Lisa de Lima who goes way beyond the call of duty frequently, and has for years, being one of our major supporters and dearest of friends. She has helped a young cellist now at Julliard who lost his mother in his teen years and Lisa stepped up for him. I first heard Nico Olarte-Hayes’ magnificent playing at a house concert in Cambridge. he has gone on to do great things at Julliard including conducting and commissioning new works form major composers.

At the same time, another friend from Montreal introduced me to someone special who he thought I would enjoy and could help – he is Alejandro Sardá who played in the Caracas Symphony until his cancer stole that ability away. And so Friends for cello was born and I have added two new pieces at the end.

I must put in a disclaimer: each musical work does not attempt to portray the individual. Lord, some of you might be very confused if that were the case. Some of the pieces are tuneful, but most are quirky and enigmatic, tiny composition exercises to keep me occupied and free of worry. They emerged directly from my soul with little interference from the head – contemplative, but emotional, spiritual meditations.

The Music

My original intent was not to create a unified extended work. However, after the fifth piece I began to repeat small motives in the rest of the works. Sandy, #7, is the only piece that I wrote for the dedicatee in the sense of being descriptive. Sandy stopped by to show me his latest set of jazz chords he had been studying and mentioned that he and his teacher were exploring possibilities with Eb tuning of the sixth string. So I used the Eb sixth and made my humble attempt at sounding ‘jazzy’.

For any geeks in the crowd, I will note that one sleepless night, I imagined chords and melodies based on expanding or contracting intervals. And so #5, Aaron, begins with a rising series of intervals that each contract by a half step, resulting in perfect fifth, diminished fifth, perfect fourth, major third, etc. down to a half step. The next phrase reverses the sequence and subsequent phrases borrow from the resulting sonorities. Nadene, #8, returns to this basic concept starting 1/2 step, whole step, minor third, etc. And the idea pervades #11 & 12.

Thank you all for your help, support and inspiration. I am so grateful!