In the 19th century, much attention was paid to a winter theme in works by Pyotr Tchaikovsky. One may mention the pieces “January” (At the Fireside with A. Pushkin’s verse as an epigraph), “February” (Carnival) and “December” (Christmas) from the set of pieces for solo piano The Seasons, and the famous Waltz of the Snowflakes from the ballet The Nutcracker, set on Christmas Eve, and a lot of beautiful compositions in his operas. The romantic journey symphony Winter Dreams was one of his earliest orchestral works which Tchaikovsky composed when he was 26 years old. The first three movements are lyrical pictures of winter nature, and the first two have the composer’s subtitles Dreams on the Winter Road and Land of Gloom, Land of Mist which reflect his personal impressions. Though Tchaikovsky does not borrow folk music here, the musical intonations are so homelike that when the true folksong is used in the finale, it seems to be a natural continuation of symphonic development. In the score, some peculiarities of Russia’s winter such as a noise of snow under sleigh runners, a jingle of bells, a tinkle of icicles, and a twinkle of Christmas lights are successfully translated by the composer into orchestral parts.
Georgy Sviridov has created classics of twentieth-century Russian music. Pushkin’s images of winter were very near to the composer’s heart. The Six Romances on texts by the great poet became the first serious compositions written by the nineteen-year-old composer. The cycle was on the repertoire of the then leading singers, and Sviridov himself said that his life had become refocused thereafter. This vocal offering to Pushkin centers on the romances “The Winter Road”, “To My Nanny” and “Winter Evening” which are dedicated to the most beautiful season. Sviridov’s musical illustrations to the film after Pushkin’s story The Blizzard also range among the composer’s best-known works. Sviridov was inspired by the idea of depicting the informal inlands remote from the Russian capital, where there were not snow-covered palaces and embankments encased in granite. He imagined the cozily patriarchal atmosphere of ancient manor-houses and estates, which were the true repository of the Russian traditions and the national spirit. The main image which became a frame of the suite is a dashing three horses flying through a boundless space in the mists of snow.
Nadezhda Kulygina
