The text for this work was written in November, as winter was setting in and I found myself already yearning for the fresh rebirth of life which comes in the Spring. The setting in music takes on a "dreamy" quality as it travels with the speaker's thoughts from the cold of the winter air to the dream of a love, as yet unknown. In the speaker's vision, the snow which covers the frozen ground melts away with the onset of dawn and the running water becomes the rain of Spring. It in turn becomes anxious rivers and finally the calm sea, where the music is finally able to bask in the warm light of Spring as young love blooms in the new season.
Cleveland, February 1999.
Text:
As winter's cooling breath
lays white the trodden path
before my house (now clear of traveler's traces)
and as it whispers on the window glass,
I dream on you, and touch soft shards of love.
But like the frozen bed of earth below,
your face is veiled in lace of snow
and one more thaw must come to pass
'ere you and I the dawn of true love know.
Yet when the balming melted rain
of sweetest spring pours warmly down this pane,
as anxious rivers overflow
into a peaceful sea by which theyıre claimed,
and when Persephone's golden grace
lights afire this darkened place,
then eternal shall be this wondrous chain
which forges in our first embrace
Copyright: Peter Gilbert, 1999
Approximate Timing: 7:00
Recordings:
Performers: Anissa Hartline, soprano. Music 2000 Festival Players, Jesse Weiner, conductor.
MP3: 6.4 MB
