# Is there classical music that sounds cold and makes you feel cold?



## caleb (10 mo ago)

Hi,

I'm a totally new to learning to make music. I do not plan to make classical music though, but like to listen to it for ideas.

Is there classical music that sounds cold and makes you feel cold?

I'm also interested in classical music that would make a person feel sadness/depressive feelings.


----------



## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

There are not a ton of top-class "cold sounding pieces, but there are loads of depressing pieces. I've included some of both:
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons: Winter:




Mahler Symphony 6 movement 3:




Beethoven String Quartet 14 movement 1




Mozart Piano Concerto 27 movement 2:




Haydn Symphony no. 49:




Beethoven Symphony 3 movement 2




Sibelius Symphony 4




Schubert Winterreise:




Bach Mass in B Minor Crucifixus 




Tchaikovsky Symphony 6 movement 4:




Ralph Vaughan Willuams: Symphonia Antartica:




Sibelius Symphony 6 movement 1:


----------



## OCEANE (10 mo ago)

caleb said:


> Hi,
> 
> I'm a totally new to learning to make music. I do not plan to make classical music though, but like to listen to it for ideas.
> 
> ...


No offensive but I'm curious to know that you are about to make music but asking any classical sounding cold or feeling cold. To my understanding, there is rare a piece of classical music to be cold or cool as classical music is complicate and mixed in terms of musical ideas, feeling and expression. You have to feel it by yourself and I'm sure you have some ideas if you are at the stage of making music.


----------



## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

I am not sure what you mean by 'depressing' as I don't detect such a mood in these pieces. As for cold ... emotionally cold?


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

The "coldness" that comes with the pedal on A:
Missa in C, sanctae Ursulae




 @20:24
Divertimento in C




 @5:22

Btw, I associate stuff like the Beethoven quartet movement more with "desolateness" or "bleakness". The first movement of Op.31 No.2 is another good example for this. Stuff by Shostakovich might also belong in this category.


----------



## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Soundtracks will likely yield the sort of vibe you're looking for.

Here's George Martin, with Pepperland Laid Waste. The music accompanies a vast barren landscape. The two flutes are a butterfly that survived.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Holst - Neptune


----------



## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


> Holst - Neptune


I thought of it, but I forgot to include it in my list.


----------



## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

I remember another!
Bartok Piano Concerto 2 movement 2:


----------



## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Sibelius -Sym #4
Vaughan Williams - Sym #7 "Antarctica"


----------



## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

> Is there classical music that sounds cold and makes you feel cold?


Most of Philip Glass.


----------



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Cold music? You need this song from Purcell's King Arthur.


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Arvo Pärt's _Tabula Rasa_ ends like the heat death of the universe.

The "Moonlight" Interlude from Britten's _Peter Grimes_.


----------



## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Feldman's "Triadic Memories" is real, real frosty and gray.


----------



## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

There's plenty of bleak Shostakovich. Great chunks of Symphony 11 in particular, the finale of the 4th too.
The string quartets as well.
I assume that cold = bleak, desolate etc.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

GraemeG said:


> I assume that cold = bleak, desolate etc.


To my mind, there is a vague distinction. Stuff like the section with the dominant pedal in the Domine jesu (Mozart Requiem) is cold, and stuff like the calmer sections of Beethoven sonata Op.31 No.2/i is bleak, desolate.


----------



## Alfacharger (Dec 6, 2013)

pianozach said:


> Soundtracks will likely yield the sort of vibe you're looking for.
> 
> Here's George Martin, with Pepperland Laid Waste. The music accompanies a vast barren landscape. The two flutes are a butterfly that survived.


Try Michael Kamen's score to the film "The Dead Zone". Frigid Sibelius!





]


----------



## AaronSF (Sep 5, 2021)

Well, Caleb, it's hard to imagine a sadder and chillier piece of music than the aria "When I am laid in earth" from Purcell's opera "Dido and Aeneas," sung here by one of the greatest voices of the last 50 years, Jessye Norman:


----------



## Nawdry (Dec 27, 2020)

caleb said:


> Is there classical music that sounds cold and makes you feel cold?
> I'm also interested in classical music that would make a person feel sadness/depressive feelings.


Two examples that immediately leapt to my mind:

(1) 4th movement of Tchaikovsky's Symphony #6 (Pathetique) - For me, this expresses profound grief, as (for example) at the shortness of human life, or the great tragedies one may encounter along the way.

(2) 3rd movement of Chopin's Piano Sonata #2 (Funeral March) - Deep, reflective mournful sadness at some kind of great loss.

Not what I'd call cold, but definitely rather sad ...


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

In coena Domini ad missam, MH 628: No. 2, Christus factus est


----------



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

ORigel said:


> I remember another!
> Bartok Piano Concerto 2 movement 2:


There are lots of "cold", dark, "night" passages in Bartok's music....


----------



## marlow (11 mo ago)

Symphony Antarctica by Vaughan Williams.


----------



## jcs1g11 (10 mo ago)

Schubert - Winterreise. 

First thing that comes to mind for me, not least because it has the word winter in it! From Wikipedia: "Wintry imagery of cold, darkness, and barrenness consistently serve to mirror the feelings of the isolated wanderer."


----------



## marlow (11 mo ago)

jcs1g11 said:


> Schubert - Winterreise.
> 
> First thing that comes to mind for me, not least because it has the word winter in it! From Wikipedia: "Wintry imagery of cold, darkness, and barrenness consistently serve to mirror the feelings of the isolated wanderer."


Especially the last song with the organ grinder


----------



## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

If we are speaking of "cold" in the sense of without emotion, as opposed to in reference to surface temperature (like being about Winter or something), I'd say the following piece is intentionally "cold" and without emotion. I think it is purposefully without any tempo fluctuations (other than 1 piano steadily accel. throughout), no dynamic changes, and is to be played as "clinically" as possible so that the Ivesian rhythmic "effect" comes through over the 20 minute duration.


----------



## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

The introduction to Sibelius' _Violin Concerto_ certainly fits the bill here I would think. A frozen landscape with a violin that acts as some kind of lone, whispering voice. This should get the ball rolling for you.


----------

