Wayne Barlow, 1912-1996 was an American composer of contemporary classical music.
He was also a professor of music, organist, and choir director at the Eastman School of Music. He was the first American to receive a doctorate in music composition. Howard Hanson and Bernard Rogers were his two principal teachers. A pioneer in the field of electronic music, Dr. Barlow founded the Eastman Electronic Music Studio.
His best-known composition is The Winter’s Passed, a descriptive fantasy originally for oboe and string orchestra based on southern folk tunes. basically tonal, almost neo-romantic. Written in 1938, in an interview Dr. Barlow said he had just barely earned my Ph.D. in composition when he wrote this piece! I was really still a student. Winter’s Past name comes from a bible passage in Songs of Solomon. An old newspaper clipping, ripped and torn, is on the NY Philharmonic digital archive score, with the article clipped on the first page.
President Eisenhower, after a particularly long winter, he crossed the street, finally seeing the sun and feeling the spring weather. He had an interview, he smiled telling someone of the beautiful day, where he said someone called his attention to a passage in the bible. The Songs of Solomon.
After the interview the reporters looked up the passage “For lo, the winter is passed, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing of the birds is come, and the voice of the turtle (doves) is heard in our land.”
