Winter Solstice: A Song History

← Back to Browse By Song

"Winter Solstice" is the 59th of the 62 entries in the "Songs included" list on the DulcimerDownloads page for Aubrey Atwater's Song By Song, Vol. II, a book of dulcimer tablature that puts each song in whatever tuning suits it; this one is set in DAG.[1] The listing describes the book's songs as traditional ones gathered from artists, songwriters and composers, but it credits no individual title, so it does not say who wrote this one.[1] In Atwater's own table of contents the song is on page 144, just after "Wintergrace/Playing By Ear."[2]

Painting of a snowy town with towers beside a frozen river, with small figures on the ice under a dusky sky

Jan Griffier, Winter Landscape, oil on copper, mounted on wood, c. 1680–1718. Shown for its winter subject; it has no connection to the song.

A track called "Winter Solstice" appears on two albums by Atwater and her husband, Elwood Donnelly, in the Atwater-Donnelly online store.[3] On Culled From The Garden (1991), which the store describes as traditional Irish, English and Scottish songs, the track list credits the lyrics to Steve Bardsley.[3] A track of the same title, with no credit given, is also on When Winter Calls (2005), a winter-holiday concert recorded live in December 2004 at the Blackstone River Theatre in Cumberland, Rhode Island, alongside "Wintergrace," "Brightest and Best" and "Christ Was Born in Bethlehem," three titles that also appear in the book's listing.[1][3] The sources consulted here do not confirm that the piece in the book is the song on either album, and they name no composer for its melody.[1][2][3]

Atwater's DulcimerDownloads biography traces the partnership to early 1987, when she and Donnelly were both volunteering at the Stone Soup Coffeehouse in Providence; the two self-taught Rhode Islanders were performing as a duo within months and married in 1989.[4] Researching and performing traditional music and dance has taken them through Appalachia, the Ozarks and New England, and to Ireland, England and Prince Edward Island.[4]

Our book that contains the song "Winter Solstice"

Sources

  1. Aubrey Atwater: "Song By Song, Vol. II".
  2. Atwater-Donnelly: "Table of Contents, Song By Song, Volume II".
  3. Atwater-Donnelly: "Discography & Online Store".
  4. DulcimerDownloads: "Aubrey Atwater".
  5. Image: Jan Griffier, Winter Landscape, oil on copper, mounted on wood, c. 1680–1718. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

← Back to Browse By Song