Winter sports are so different from summer sports – you can fly through the air on your skies, slide down the icy hill on your sledge, or just silently glide through the snowy forest on your cross-country skies. Let’s see what composers have done with some of these ideas!

Cypriot composer Christos Tsitasaros collected nine character pieces as Songs without Words, and made sledding one of his subjects. It starts out calmly and builds to an exciting crash ending.

Sledding crash

In her work for Inuit throat singers and ensemble, Alexina Louie invites us to Take the Dog Sled. The work was commissioned by Kent Nagano and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra on the occasion of their first tour to Quebec’s far north, Nunvik. The orchestra would have 2 throat singers with them (Evie Mark and Akinisie Sivuarapik) and before she set note to paper, the composer spent two months listening to traditional Inuit throat songs and singers. To the composer’s relief, the music was received with delight by the Inuit audience.

Dog Sled

In his cycle of 21 piano pieces, Sports et divertissements (Sports and Pastimes), Erik Satie included sledding as one of his amusements. Charles Martin’s illustration is in the height of early 20th century fashionable style.

Martin: Sports et divertissements: Le Traîneau (Gallica: bpt6k310981r)

As part of his music for the 1976 film Die Geschichte Eines Unbekannten Schauspielers (The Story of the Unknown Actor). Russian composer Alfred Schnittke included a section for a sled.

Alfred Schnittke: Die Geschichte Eines Unbekannten Schauspielers (The Story of the Unknown Actor) – Agitato I – Sled (British Youth String Orchestra; Loes Visser, cond.)

Anthony DiLorenzo, in The Toy Maker, the Greek inventor Daedelus constructs magical toys, and his final one is a flying sled for his friend Nicholas….who needs something to help him deliver toys around the world.

‘Nicholas is kind and generous to all, especially children. Wanting to help in his friend’s efforts, Daedalus builds Nicholas a huge sled, that will not only carry his gifts for the children, but will also be able to hover over rough terrain as he travels across the land. Together they take the magnificent sled out for its first flight. The sled rises above the city towers and, like a dove, glides across the clouds. The adventure begins…’.

The Flying Sled

As part of his collection of 100 Hardanger Tunes, Geirr Tveitt gives us a mountain girl skiing.

Geirr Tveitt: 100 Hardanger Tunes, Op. 151 – Suite No. 2: 15 Mountain Songs: No. 29: The mountain girl skiing downhill (Royal Scottish National Orchestra; Bjarte Engeset, cond.)

In his ballet Manerenen (Moon Reindeer), Knudåge Riisager starts with a skiing dance.

Knudåge Riisager: Manerenen (Moon Reindeer), Op. 57 – Scene 1: Skidans (Skiing Dance) (Aarhus Symphony Orchestra; Bo Holten, cond.)

Sibelius, on the other hand, gives us a philosophical problem. The poet (Bertel Gripenberg) uses the idea of a ski trail in the snowy forest to make a parallel between the fading trail and our own inability to find answers to our internal dialogues. Both seem to be erratic wanderings without resolution – but not without danger. The poem ends:

Cross-country skiing

Faustin Jeanjean, on the other hand, takes a much more cheerful point of view in his Ski-Symphonie for 4 flutes.

Young women of Oslo (then Christiania) skiing association, about 1890 (Norway: Nasjonalbiblioteket)

Skiing, sliding, sledding – all the simple sports of winter.

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