When Winter Comes

“When Winter Comes” is scored for double chorus (SSA(A) and SATB), strings, and piano and is the first movement of a larger work, “Wintertide,” which is also available on this website. This piece explores the multifaceted nature of winter, especially its temporal and spiritual dimensions together with the cyclical nature of the seasons. As winter arrives, the Earth sheds its greenery, and the world takes on an ancient, sacred quality. The work progresses through the seasons before the cycle returns to the quiet stillness of winter, reminding us of the transient yet recurring rhythms of nature. The texts incorporate a meditation on the winter season by the Canadian poet, Carman Bliss with selected quatrains by the Latin poet Horace (interpolated with a macaronic translation into English by A.E. Housman).

I. When Winter Comes
Winter by Bliss Carman

WHEN winter comes along the river line
And Earth has put away her green attire,
With all the pomp of her autumnal pride,
The world is made a sanctuary old,
Where Gothic trees uphold the arch of gray,
And gaunt stone fences on the ridge’s crest
Stand like carved screens before a crimson shrine,
Showing the sunset glory through the chinks.
There, like a nun with frosty breath, the soul,
Uplift in adoration, sees the world
Transfigured to a temple of her Lord;
While down the soft blue-shadowed aisles of snow
Night, like a sacristan with silent step,
Passes to light the tapers of the stars.

* “Diffugere Nives,” two quatrains from Odes (IV.vii) by Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace)

Diffugere nives, redeunt iam gramina campis
Arboribusque comae;
Mutat terra vices et decrescentia ripas
Flumina praetereunt.
. . .
Frigora mitescunt Zephyris, ver proterit aestas
Interitura, simul
Pomifer autumnus fruges effuderit, et mox
Bruma recurrit iners.
. . .
The two quatrains of “Diffugere Nives” in English translation by A.E. Housman are interpolated with the Latin text

The snows are fled away, leaves on the shaws
And grasses in the mead renew their birth,
The river to the river-bed withdraws,
And altered is the fashion of the earth.
. . .
Thaw follows frost; hard on the heel of spring
Treads summer sure to die, for hard on hers
Comes autumn with his apples scattering;
Then back to wintertide, when nothing stirs. . . .
* Use Classical Latin pronunciation for the Latin text.

1 - Conductor Score (Full Score)

1 - Piano

4 - Violin 1
4 - Violin 2
3 - Viola
2 - Violoncello
2 - Double Bass