Duration: 15 minutes
Instrumentation: solo piano
Program note:
"In Winter: Reverberations on a Theme strikes a uniquely private tone. Turning to a theme reminiscent of Stephen Foster written by the composer’s own great-grandfather, Alfred M. Durham (who was himself a Julliard-trained composer as well as a music educator), this work explores yet another dimension of the connective tissue binding this repertoire—the ancestral. 'The manuscript to Alfred’s original theme, ‘Lullaby in Winter,’' recalls Wickman, 'was given to me by my grandmother some years before she died. I have often been inspired by my connection to this other composer in my family—and this piece is something
of a tribute to that relationship, distant though it may be.' Accordingly, 'In Winter' refashions theme and variations form in a far more individual mode. As the product of Durham’s own descendent, these personal 'reverberations' not only derive from his original musical material, but also seem to underscore an ineffable link to the broader hereditary source in play. Appropriately—as Wickman blurs the boundaries between his ideas—these variations become far less sectionalized than one might expect, often bearing an unusually close resemblance to one another. In this sense, the more commonplace techniques of interruption and interpolation that guide the work’s ruminations take on an especially novel, intimate meaning."
--Ryan Patrick Jones