These winter pieces are the perfect accompaniment to a chilly evening and one of our 10 classic tales. Listen along either on Spotify or YouTube.
Henry Purcell, “Now Winter Comes Slowly,” from The Fairy-Queen
Purcell depicts all of the seasons in Act IV of this masterpiece of the English Baroque theater, but the bare, forsaken, wintry world of this song and chorus is particularly memorable.
Antonio Vivaldi, Winter from The Four Seasons
These four violin concertos may be the most famous pieces in classical music, but Vivaldi’s rendering of a pervasive chill, of snow and wind and chattering teeth, never fails to astound.
Franz Joseph Haydn, The Seasons
The libretto of this great oratorio, the concluding section of which depicts winter, is based on James Thomson’s long poem The Seasons.
Franz Schubert, Die Winterreise
Full of melancholy, Schubert’s cycle of 24 heartbreakingly beautiful songs portrays a lovesick young poet and his bleak winter’s journey.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 1
Tchaikovsky labored long and hard over this early work, nicknamed “Winter Dreams.” The first movement portrays the reveries of a winter journey, the second, a desolate land of mists.
Dmitri Shostakovich, Symphony No. 11
Shostakovich’s cinematic symphony depicting the Russian Revolution of 1905 is filled with cold, bleak imagery—the season as backdrop to protest and communal anger.
Given that Debussy completed his great homage to the sea during an intolerably hot summer on the south coast of England, La Mer might be an odd choice for this list, but knowing that the composer was partly inspired by Hokusai’s The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, with its massive frosty breaker and a snowcapped Mt. Fuji, you might begin to hear the work in a different way.
Any number of Sibelius’s works could qualify (think of the shimmering, icy opening of the Violin Concerto or the wintry forest rendered in the late tone poem Tapiola), but the wonderful Fourth Symphony, austere and daring, is especially suited for a cold and dark evening.
John Luther Adams, Earth and the Great Weather
Adams, who often depicts the expansive landscapes of Alaska in his music, has said of this primal, hallucinogenic work: “I call it a sonic geography of the Arctic.”
Anna Thorvaldsdottir, In the Light of Air
Icelandic composer Thorvaldsdottir has created a work that is haunting, desolate, stark, and luminous, its sonorities addicting and rhythms beguiling.
