# Compositions that have snow/ice as their subject



## Clouds Weep Snowflakes (Feb 24, 2019)

Is there anything like that you know of? Of any kind of Classical music and/or period; if there's any, please share with me!


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)




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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)




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## Clouds Weep Snowflakes (Feb 24, 2019)

Thanks, anything else?


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## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

Clouds Weep Snowflakes said:


> Is there anything like that you know of? Of any kind of Classical music and/or period; if there's any, please share with me!


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## Aleksandr Rachkofiev (Apr 7, 2019)

Sviridov's "Snowstorm" is quite nice, and though Tchaikovsky's "Winter Daydreams" doesn't directly mention snow, it portrays winter in Russia which is close enough...

I imagine most of Sibelius' symphonies will give you similar vibes.


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## infracave (May 14, 2019)

Chopin's Etude "Winter wind" ?
Schubert's Erstarrung from Winterreise ?
Vanilla Ice's Cool as ice ?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

There is this, from Purcell:






Or this from Sibelius:


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)




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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)




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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)




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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

And let's not forget this ..


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Jetzt Immer Schnee, Sofia Gubaidulina


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Alpine Symphony:


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)




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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Haydn: The Seasons - Winter: "Now the outworn year is dying / and chilly fogs descend"


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Eric Whiteacre's Sleep captures the beauty of mid-Winter:


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

...............


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)




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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Thought of this right away when I saw the thread title. Liszt called it Chasse-Neige which (Google) translates to snow plow or snow clearer.


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## infracave (May 14, 2019)

Phil loves classical said:


> Thought of this right away when I saw the thread title. Liszt called it Chasse-Neige which (Google) translates to snow plow or snow clearer.


That's the contemporary meaning of chasse-neige (snowplow). In the case of the Liszt piece, it means "impetuous wind which raises whirls of snow", which makes more sense.


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## Rubens (Nov 5, 2017)

The album Out of Noise by Riuichi Sakamoto has at least two tracks about ice.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Here's some evocative new music for string quartet from a talented young Canadian composer. It's an example of music inspired by the visual arts - in this case, Simon Martin pays homage to the distinguished Canadian painter Jean-Paul Riopelle. In 1977, after visiting the stark northern landscapes, Riopelle painted a black and white series entitled 'Icebergs', including Midnight Sun (Quartet in White). Martin, who qualifies his composition as _Quatuor en blanc_ (quartet in white) explains that "....each section can be seen as one painting within a series...with inherent contrasting structures and variations.......my work also celebrates life and the rhythm of its manifestations."


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## Minor Sixthist (Apr 21, 2017)

There are lots of different choral renditions of Frost's poem "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening." This is a really haunting one by Randall Thompson I enjoy a lot, and I think speaks well to the deeper impression of the poem.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Georgy Sviridov - The Snowstorm
Tuomas Kantelinen - The Snow Queen ballet


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Gösta Nystroem- Ishavet:






Ice have a huge part in his opera Herr Arnes penningar which is set on the then Norwegian now Swedish west coast during the winter:


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

"Battle On the Ice" from Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?...56444C9208039ECB600B56444C9208039EC&FORM=VIRE


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Tchaikovsky - Sym #1 Winter Dreams
Vaughan Williams - Sym #7 "Antarctica"
Sibelius - Sym #4 - this one just always sounds cold, clear and icy to me..
Fucik - Konzert-Walz "Wintersturme"


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## Josquin13 (Nov 7, 2017)

Jean Sibelius evokes winter, snow, freezing cold, howling winds, and ice in his music. He spoke about how the breaking of ice, and the experience of nature coming back to life in spring pervaded most of his works.

I'm not sure that there's any piece of music more wintry in feel than Sibelius's final tone poem, Tapiola:





For me, Sibelius's stark evocation of winter is rivaled only by Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 7, "Sinfonia Antartica", and Vivaldi's Winter from his Four Seasons.

Sinfonia Antartica: 



Vivaldi's Winter: 




Sibelius also composed a lesser known piano piece called "Talvikuva" or "Winter Scene", Op. 114: 




Most recently, there's also the familiar theme music to Game of Thrones, or A Song of Ice and Fire: which ended brilliantly this past week, after 8 seasons:


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## calvinpv (Apr 20, 2015)

Hans Abrahamsen: Schnee (2008)

Arnold Bax: Piano Concerto "Winter Legends" (1930)

Tristan Murail: Winter Fragments (2000)

Takashi Yoshimatsu: White Landscapes, Op. 47a (1991)


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Josquin13 said:


> Jean Sibelius evokes winter, snow, freezing cold, howling winds, and ice in his music. He spoke about how the breaking of ice, and the experience of nature coming back to life in spring pervaded most of his works.
> 
> I'm not sure that there's any piece of music more wintry in feel than Sibelius's final tone poem, Tapiola:
> 
> ...


Cool to see that you're a fan of GOT as well as great music :cheers:

Tapiola is a great choice. Also Sibelius' 4th symphony, while not at all programmatic, is a winter landscape if I've ever heard one:






I feel the same way about Tchaikovsky's 5th.






It's probably just because of the sleigh bells, but Mahler's 4th is a bit wintry too:


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Heck148 said:


> Tchaikovsky - Sym #1 Winter Dreams
> Vaughan Williams - Sym #7 "Antarctica"
> Sibelius - Sym #4 - this one just always sounds cold, clear and icy to me..
> Fucik - Konzert-Walz "Wintersturme"


I agree about Sibelius's 4th. It's such a strange piece, isn't it?


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> I agree about Sibelius's 4th. It's such a strange piece, isn't it?


Strange indeed. I hadn't seen Heck's post before I made mine, but that one is definitely very wintry. Music for an Arctic Circle trek of some sort. So is Sibelius' 1st, for that matter.


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## Clouds Weep Snowflakes (Feb 24, 2019)

Thank you for the comments! Anything else?


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## Josquin13 (Nov 7, 2017)

flamencosketches writes, "Tapiola is a great choice. Also Sibelius' 4th symphony, while not at all programmatic, is a winter landscape if I've ever heard one"

While a winter landscape and nature pervade much of Sibelius's music, I don't personally see his 4th Symphony as connected to winter, at least not as explicitly as certain other works--such as the wintry forest in Tapiola. Sibelius called his 4th a "psychological symphony", and it is apparently connected to a 1909 painting by his artist friend, Oscar Parviainen, as the painting was created in the same year as the 4th Symphony: 1909-1910. Indeed, Sibelius dedicated his 4th Symphony to Parviainen, and prominently hung the painting on the wall by his piano. Like the 4th, Parviainen's painting--entitled "Invocation or Child's Death"--is a dark, depressing work, which portrays the Spectre of Death looming over a woman and the corpse of her lifeless child on a bed. Given that the painting seems to have meant a great deal to Sibelius, it has been associated with the composer's loss of his own daughter in 1900. So, perhaps the 4th is 'psychologically' connected to Sibelius and his wife's ongoing mourning over their child.

It has also been suggested that the 4th is connected to Sibelius's own brush with a cancerous tumor in 1908, as he thought he was dying, and feared that the tumor would return for years afterwards. But whatever inspired the 4th, I agree, it is Sibelius's darkest symphony. So I'm not at all surprised that people connect it to winter and death.

The painting is shown and discussed in relation to Sibelius's 4th in the following documentary of Vladimir Ashkenazy's trip to Finland, and visit to Ainola (the section on the painting begins at 9:25 into the film, however, I'd recommend watching the whole film, which is beautifully shot in HD): 




Btw, Okko Kamu's recent recording of the 4th is exceptional--easily the best performance of his (slightly erratic) BIS cycle, along with Berglund's various accounts.

P.S. "Cool to see that you're a fan of GOT as well as great music... " You too!


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Great stuff! I'll definitely have to watch this documentary when I get a bit of free time. I didn't know the background of it, so I will have to listen again with those ideas in mind. I've heard a bit of Okko Kamu's cycle and liked what I heard, but not the 4th.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Rautavaara: Cantus Arcticus (1972). Very evocative music, interspersed with recordings of wild birds in the vast, unpeopled forests of the arctic circle.


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

Yevgeny Svetlanov: Siberian Fantasy (1954)





Boris Tchaikovsky: Wind of Siberia (1984)





Georgy Sviridov: The Snowstorm (1975)





*Others:* 


Massenet: Werther (intermezzo between Acts III & IV)
Shaporin: The Decembrists
Tubin: Symphony no. II (1937)
Howard Hanson: Merry Mount
Samuel Barber: Vanessa (Act I, Scene I)


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