Awake Thou Wintry Earth [CF:144-40148]

Reverie, as the name suggests, is basically contemplative although there are some contrasting moments of a more animated nature. The two instruments wend their separate ways but always each complements the other. Awake Thou Wintry Earthis a seventeenth-century Dutch carol (the English title is by Thomas Blackburn). Some 45 years ago when I conducted the chorus of Sarah Lawrence College, the carol was frequently on our programs. Unaccountably this lovely melody came to mind decades later and seemed perfect as a theme for a second movement of the Duo. The Variations are mostly continuous rather than sectional. In one way or another all the music derives from the carol melody, sometimes identifiably so and sometimes far removed from the simplicity of the original. —William Schuman