George Winston
Winter Into Spring

Two years after his first successful release with his friend Will Ackerman's Windham Hill Records, "Winter into Spring" comes out, an album once again inspired by the changing of the seasons and landscapes in his native land: the sparsely populated Montana. Clearly, two years have not gone by in vain, as this work is decidedly favorable compared to the previous "Autumn" both for its abundance of tracks and for its interpretative quality: where there were monotonous repetitions, we find a greater complexity of execution topics, making "Winter into Spring" interesting in almost all tracks, perhaps also aided by the more favorable climate.

Of course, it starts in January, I write this because our hero already had an album entirely dedicated to the month of December, which coincidentally will be released in that month of '82... In January, probably the most interesting thing, landscape-wise, to observe and translate into music in Montana must necessarily be the stars, a theme dear to George who had composed a track on this subject on the previous LP, but here one can note the evident leap in quality of a much more intricate composition, truly capable of describing the complexity of the celestial vault. In February, the contemplation shifts to the sea, which is felt and reproduced with much greater richness of sounds than in "Autumn," perhaps the move to California has allowed Winston to delve deeper into the subject... so much so that the third track is also on this theme and is executed quite well ("Ocean Waves").

We are not given to know what subject the reflection of the fourth track deals with, but it is certainly somewhat sad and aligned with the following track which brings the rain, well rendered, but perhaps more autumnal than spring-like, except thickening toward the middle with beginnings of thunderstorms and various downpours: a beautiful image, in short, masterfully rendered with a remarkable final cadence.

After the rain, spring comes into full bloom with the sweet description of fields, for months covered by snow and ice, now enlivened by many beautiful little flowers sprouting everywhere; this bucolic landscape can only make the viewer dream, and when one wants to dream of something beautiful where do they inevitably end up? Obviously, in the most beautiful city in the world, which happens to be right here.... romantically described in the second part of the track after a bland introduction. However, I fear that our Venetian dreamer did not know very well the places in question, unlike those North American ones dear to him, yet it results in a good farewell piece.

From the above, it is easy to rate it for a full 4 stars, better than the plentiful 3 of "Autumn" and certainly not aided by the rather banal graphics, but the company's line was quite minimal and new age, and the acoustic performance is good, albeit standard despite the 1985 remix.