Winter, Snow – Carol Barnett

Composer: Carol Barnett

Text by: Carol Barnett and Edward Thomas (1878-1917)

Instrumentation: SSA and piano

Duration: Approx. 3'30"

Date Written:  2004

Composer’s note: It was hard to find the perfect text for this 2005-2006 Minnesota All-State Women’s Choir commission. I tried writing words to fit the bright B major chords I was hearing, but only got as far as three lines about winter. Then I found the lovely “Snow” by the Edwardian British poet Edward Thomas and decided to contrast the cold brightness of my lyrics with the soft snowy whiteness of Thomas’s lines. The result is an other-worldly little waltz for treble voices and piano.

Text

Winter, Snow

Winter, bright light,
Cold flame of renewal,
Music of ice.
-Carol Barnett

In the gloom of whiteness,
In the great silence of snow,
A child was sighing
And bitterly saying: “Oh,
They have killed a white bird up there on her nest,
The down is fluttering from her breast!”
And still it fell through the dusky brightness
On the child crying for the bird of the snow.

-Edward Thomas

Edward Thomas (1878-1917) was born in London. He was a freelance writer and editor until his friend Robert Frost encouraged him to write poetry. As with Frost, most of his poems were inspired by his love of nature. He died at age thirty-nine in France at the Battle of Arras. His Collected Poems appeared in 1920.