Winter

This week’s Words and Music is devoted to the season Emily Dickinson described as the time when the sky is low and the clouds are mean: winter. Winter in the countryside is celebrated in Wordsworth’s ‘The Prelude’ when, as a child, he and his friends skated along the ice, flying through the cold in the darkness. With this you’ll hear Peter Maxwell Davies’ ‘At the lochan’ from his ‘Seven Songs Home’, the series of songs which tell the story of children in the Orkneys making their way home from school on a winter’s afternoon. Mark Doty’s walk with his dogs as the sun sets is heard alongside the Finnish composer Rautavaara’s concerto for birds and orchestra, ‘Cantus Arcticus’. The memory of winter past is heard in David Hartnett’s ‘Two winters’ in which a man, now a parent himself, remembers his father shovelling snow outside his childhood home, a time in which he dreamed that the snow fell for years ‘and the ray of stars like birds’ feet flecked the white’. Winters in California and Tangiers are evoked by the poets Karl Shapiro and Sarah Maguire – in one the pink camellias line the paths, in the other ‘hibiscus blooms burn, scarlet, cerise, tangerine’. The programme ends with Robert Frost’s ‘Stopping by woods on a snowy evening’ and Wayne Barlow’s rhapsody for oboe and strings inspired by Appalachian folk songs, ‘Winter’s Passed’.

Fiona McLean - Producer.

Playlist.
ALEKSANDER GLAZUNOV
The Seasons – Winter
Yevgeny Svetlanov – conductor
Philharmonia Orchestra
EMI CDC7478472

EMILY DICKINSON
The Sky is Low
Cheryl Campbell (reader)

EINAR ENGLUND
The Reindeer Race
Northern Pictures
Kuopio Symphony Orchestra
Shuntaro Sato – conductor
FINLANDIA 8573855732

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
from The Prelude
Struan Rodger (reader)

CLAUDE DEBUSSY
Children’s Corner - The Snow is Dancing
Children’s Weekend
Pascal Roge – piano
DECCA 4216262

PETER MAXWELL DAVIES
Seven Songs Home – At the Lochan
The Choir of St Mary’s Music School
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies – conductor
UNICORN DKPCD9070

MARK DOTY
In the Same Space
Cheryl Campbell (reader)

EINOJUHANI RAUTAVAARA
Cantus Arcticus
Richard Stoltzman – clarinet
Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra
Leif Segerstam – conductor
ONDINE ODE10412

ALICE OSWALD
Sonnet
Cheryl Campbell (reader)

TCHAIKOVSKY
Symphony no 1 - Winter Dreams
Berliner Philharmoniker
Herbert von Karajan – conductor
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 4191762

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
Winter Trees
Cheryl Campbell (reader)

BENJAMIN BRITTEN
Winter Words – At Close of Day in November
Song Cycles
Robert Tear – tenor
Sir Philip Ledger – piano
EMI CZS5739952

KARL SHAPIRO
Winter in California
Struan Rodger (reader)

MAMAS AND THE PAPAS
California Dreamin’
Complete Anthology
MCA 982 168 0

SARAH MAGUIRE
Wintering in Tangier
Cheryl Campbell (reader)

OLIVER MESSIAEN
Catalogue d’oiseaux - Robin
Hakan Austbo – piano
NAXOS 855353234

THOMAS CAMPION
Now winter nights enlarge
Struan Rodger (reader)

ANTONIO VIVALDI
The Seasons – Winter in F Minor
Nigel Kennedy – violin
Berliner Philharmoniker
EMI 5576660

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
The Cold Earth Slept Below
Chery Campbell (reader)

JEAN SIBELIUS
Arioso
Soile Isokoski – soprano
Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra
Leif Segerstam – conductor
ONDINE ODE10805

JEAN REDPATH
Snow Goose
Leaving the Land
GREENTRAX CDTRAX039

DAVID HARTNETT
Two Winters
Struan Rodger (reader)

FREDERICK DELIUS
North Country Sketches – Winter Landscape
Works for Piano Four Hands
Noriko Ogawa and Kathryn Stott – piano
BIS BISCD 1347

EMILY DICKINSON
Winter is Good
Cheryl Campbell (reader)

FRANK BRIDGE
Christmas Dance ‘Sir Roger de Coverley’
English Seasons
Academy of St Martin in the Fields
Sir Neville Marriner – conductor
PHILIPS 454442

WALLACE STEVENS
The Snow Man
Struan Rodger (reader)

FRANCIS POULENC
Un soir de neige
Figure Humaine and other Secular Choral Music
New London Chamber Choir
James Wood – conductor
HELIOS CDH55179

EMILY BRONTE
The night is darker
Cheryl Campbell (reader)

ROBERT FROST
Stopping by woods

WAYNE BARLOW
The Winter’s Past
Music for Quiet Listening
Eastman Philharmonia
Howard Hanson – conductor
MERCURY 4343472