or how i spent my summer vacation

• To download the score click on the individual movement below
  1. Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind 9:10
  2. Snow-Flakes 5:41 (also available with piano accompaniment)
  3. The North Wind Doth Blow 5:30
• Contact terry@vosbein.com for performance materials

SATB chorus; 2 fl, 2 ob, 3 cl, bs cl, bsn; 2 a sax, t sax, b sax; 4 hn, 3 tp, 3 tb, euph, tuba; timp, 2 perc

I can remember vividly all through grade school having to write an essay each fall on my summer’s activities. These were usually stories of vacations to historic sites, long drives through beautiful countryside and lots of beaches and mountains. Well, some things don’t change.

During the summer of 1997 I took a two month little drive, covering 12,000 miles and twenty states and four provinces. I camped, I hiked, I visited coffee houses. And I composed.

My task was to compose a work for band and chorus to be featured on the Holiday Concert at Washington and Lee. Before leaving on my journey I spent countless hours sitting on the floor of libraries, bookstores and my living room searching for just the right texts. I eventually settled on a winter theme and found three poems that I thought fit my musical needs.

So I drove and I composed and I drove and I camped and I drove and I composed and...well, 12,000 miles later I came home with the bulk of the creative work done.

The first movement is based on Shakespeare’s Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind. The stanzas are set in a four-part form that could be described as ABCB. I inserted an extra repetition of the B section at the beginning, forming a five-part rondo scheme of BACAB, or more properly expressed, ABACA.

Longfellow provided the inspiration and the words for the second movement, with his poem, Snow-Flakes. The music is full of crawling, dense contrapuntal lines that weave somber webs around the text.

The finale is an up beat romp. After a triumphal introduction, the melody is stated in the solo oboe. From here on out a series of variations, both vocal and instrumental, unfolds. There are several references to the first movement to be found. The poor robin hides from the snow, with a text from a traditional nursery rhyme, and a good time is had by all.

A Winter Symphony was commissioned by the Washington and Lee University Wind Ensemble and University Chorus and was premiered by them on 10 December 1997. It is dedicated to the members of these ensembles and to their directors, Barry Kolman and Scott Williamson.