I wanted to try something a little different.

I quipped to my son that the opening is a kind of chromatic fugue. He was mildly outraged. He asked, “Isn’t that like dry water?”

Well, yes. Or perhaps not — I’ll have to give that some thought. There are, of course, schools of musical thought where that isn’t any kind of difficulty. I don’t find them very listenable. But it is neither strictly chromatic, nor — formally-speaking — strictly a fugue. Whatever it is, I think it worked out quite nicely.

This chromatic fugue, or whatever it is, forms the recurring dark, fluid, ever-shifting part of the Winter Dream. Then the melody rises, first in the English horn, then in the flute, and finally in a full-on film-score rendition that was a lot of fun to write.

For your enjoyment.