COLD!

Wrapped up like a giant crêpe this morning in bed, my best-laid early (gym) plans in ruins, I meditated on the sweet sounds of Puccini's La Bohème (Serafin, Decca) as they drifted from my office adjacent to my bedroom. The music was complemented by the faint aroma of coffee wafting up from an unplunged cafetière downstairs, reminding me just how much this Italian opera classic has served as a soundtrack for the cold throughout my life.

Determined to consider other options for my winter soundtrack, I began to plot a playlist for the day ahead—one that would accompany a roaring log fire and mulled wine-scented candles left over from Christmas. Naturally, Jean Sibelius takes the top spot, particularly his seven symphonies and tone poems, but also his Kullervo Symphony, inspired by the tragic figure from Finnish mythology. Tchaikovsky, of course, always fits the bill for freezing temperatures. The colder it gets outside, the more despairing his music can get—should you choose to go there. If The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, and Sleeping Beauty warm the soul around zero degrees, then his Pathétique Symphony annihilates it when played at minus five degrees or lower. Tread carefully with that one. But if you're in a nihilistic Russian mood, it's the musical equivalent of Stolichnaya 100 Proof or a plunge into a freezing lake in southern Siberia.

Zbigniew Preisner's soundtracks for Krzysztof Kieślowski's Dekalog and Three Colours: White are perfect choices for mellow bleakness—ideal for contemplating human despair without veering fully into Pathétique territory. Many of those scores remind me of a frozen tap, with water droplets suspended like tiny icicles. Dick Hyman's beautifully Italianate score for Norman Jewison's Moonstruck recalls Dean Martin's 'That's Amore' and aptly references Puccini's La Bohème throughout. I can practically smell the Italian pastries from Ronny Cammareri's basement kitchen through sidewalk vents, mingling with the soft falling snow outside on the streets of New York. The Maurice Jarre score for Dead Poets Society evokes warmth amidst the cold, thanks to its magical use of the hammered dulcimer. For some reason, it always reminds me of taking my daughter to Advent spiral events each December, where candles flickered and older women dressed as angels seemed to transcend the trials of menopause.

On the opera front, I tend to reach for Puccini's La Fanciulla del West—perhaps because it features a blizzard, cowboys bundling up in their ponchos inside saloons, and plenty of whiskey. There’s also Catalani’s La Wally, which famously includes an avalanche; I might reappraise that one later. Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, with its duels in the snow, also feels fitting for the current cold spell we’re experiencing here in the UK.

I think it’s a shame that Frank Sinatra never recorded a cold-themed concept album—“music to freeze your tits to.” But perhaps, living mostly in Beverly Hills and Palm Springs for most of his adult life, he couldn’t quite relate to the cold climate. Still, being born in Hoboken, I’m sure he’d have memories of the northwest wind (with its Arctic air) whipping off the Hudson River.

Anyway, I’m off to plunge a freshly made cafetière and ponder how Tolstoy and Dostoevsky managed to write so prolifically in such freezing temperatures, while I’ve barely managed 500 words today.

Stay warm!