Commissioned by the White House Trio in 2023, Fantasia on “Stevie White, Merry Musician” was composed in memory of the ensemble’s founder, Stephen Jean “Stevie” White (1932-2021). She was born during the Great Depression and her parents thought they would likely have only one child, so they gave her a boy’s name. Only twice did she have a problem with the name: when she went to St. Lawrence University, they put her in a men’s dorm; and when she received a draft notice from the military. Both were quickly resolved. She played French horn in school, but was dissuaded from studying music, so she earned degrees from St. Lawrence and Stanford Universities in physical therapy, and went on to be a teacher at De Anza College in Cupertino, CA.

After her retirement, Stevie came back to music, especially the recorder. She liked Baroque music, and the White House Trio (later simply White House as the group’s membership varied) frequently performed recorder arrangements of pieces from the period, as well as earlier and later modern pieces. The music presented here reflects Stevie’s love of late-Renaissance / early-Baroque fantasias like those for keyboard by Jan Pieterzoon Sweelinck (1562-1621), and for viols by William Byrd (c.1540-1623).

Stevie’s name and “merry musician” appear in solmization in all parts throughout the piece, either as a slow cantus firmus amid florid decorations, or in small imitative fragments and paraphrases in augmentation or diminution. In this treatment, the vowel of each syllable is assigned a pitch according to which degree of the hexachord it rhymes most closely with (ut, re, mi, fa/la, sol). “Stevie White” renders as mi-mi, fa-mi because of the vowel glide in “White”, and “merry musician” becomes the palindromic re-mi-ut-mi-re:

Tempo suggestion: in general the (dotted) half note should be between about 48 and 60, feel free to adjust tempo to whatever is comfortable.

As in all my music, tasteful ornamentation is welcome and encouraged.

Cover photo: luggage tag on Stevie’s Great Bass case

Performance at Hillside Community Church, El Cerrito, March 16, 2024: