Canadian Contrasts

Godfrey Ridout is hailed as one of Canada’s most prominent composers and music historians. Born in Toronto in 1918, he attended the University of Toronto where he studied composition, conducting, organ, counterpoint and piano. He became known worldwide at the age of 20 for his composition Ballade for Viola and Strings (1938) which was performed in Canada, the US and Great Britain. Ridout’s style was very eclectic, and he was able to master a variety of genres, including baroque, 20th century music and serialism. Many of his early works were commissioned by CBC TV and Radio and the NFB (National Film Board of Canada) giving him an exposure to popular and jazz music. By incorporating these many styles, Ridout understood the balance between chaos and order when writing music for the general public. 

Composed in 1961, Fall Fair starts with a fast, rhythmic and driving section in D Major, accented by high woodwinds and mallet percussion. The full orchestra comes together to depict the raucous energy of an outdoor fair; vendors shouting, street performers and children running around. The second section features a broad theme in A Major, led by the English Horn. This beautiful hymn-like tune comes to a peak and then transitions to a short development based on the first section. Returning to a coda on the second theme, the piece ends in a flourish just as it began!

I. Spring in the Maritimes

II. Summer in the Prairies

III. Autumn in Gatineau Park

IV. Winter in Nunavut

The Canadian Seasons was commissioned by the National Broadcast Orchestra (former CBC Radio Orchestra) in 2010 and premiered at the Chan Centre in Vancouver, with Jonathan Crow as soloist, and Alain Trudel conducting. 

The work was inspired by Vivaldi’s Four Seasons but is truly an homage to Canada with each season being attached to a specific region of Canada. The piece incorporates aspects of romantic classical music, celtic music and fiddling to create a unique crossover work.

When Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky began work on his first symphony in the winter of 1866, he was still a young composer trying to find his voice. At twenty-six, he had just accepted a teaching post at the newly founded Moscow Conservatory, an uncertain venture led by Nikolai Rubinstein.

The new institution promised artistic freedom and opportunity, but for Tchaikovsky, it also meant heavy teaching duties, relentless fatigue, and near-constant insecurity about his own talent.

The symphony he began that year—untitled at first, but later known as Winter Daydreams—became both a proving ground and a personal trial. He struggled intensely with its composition, rewriting entire sections after harsh criticism from his St. Petersburg mentors, Anton Rubinstein and Nikolai Zaremba. They found fault with almost every bar, accusing him of lacking discipline and “violating the rules of form.” The criticism was devastating to the young composer, who still regarded the German symphonic tradition as the model of perfection.

Tchaikovsky’s letters from this period reveal a mind on the edge. He wrote of sleeplessness, hallucinations, and fear that his health—or sanity—might collapse under the strain. “I cannot describe the suffering that this symphony has caused me,” he wrote to his brother Anatoly. Yet, even amid doubt and exhaustion, the music advanced, revealing the early stirrings of the Tchaikovsky we now recognize: lyrical, dramatic, and deeply personal.

The Symphony No. 1 in G minor was completed in 1866, then heavily revised in 1868 for its first performance under Nikolai Rubinstein in Moscow. Despite its flaws, the work was warmly received. Its melodic freshness and emotional directness spoke to audiences in a way few Russian symphonies had done before. Tchaikovsky would revisit the score again in 1874, producing the definitive version performed today.

Although he was later self-critical of the symphony, Tchaikovsky retained a lasting fondness for it. “It is immature, but with it I associate the fondest memories of my youth,” he admitted. “It is a sin of my sweet youth, and in many respects more substantial than many of my later works.” That emotional connection perhaps explains the music’s unique warmth and sincerity. Even his brother Modest noted that the composer never tired of speaking affectionately about it.

The subtitle Winter Daydreams was not part of the original conception but reflects the work’s atmosphere. Only the first two movements bear descriptive headings: Daydreams of a Winter Journey and Land of Gloom, Land of Mist. The titles suggest not programmatic storytelling but moods—landscapes of memory, imagination, and introspection. Though Tchaikovsky rarely embraced explicit programs for his symphonies, here he paints with distinctly pictorial colors: the chill of winter air, the melancholy of distance, the quiet radiance of daydreams.

I. Allegro tranquillo — “Daydreams of a Winter Journey”

The opening is pure Tchaikovsky: a hushed, yearning melody for flute and bassoon, floating above muted strings. It grows into a sweeping romantic theme that seems to traverse vast Russian spaces, moving between gentle lyricism and dramatic surge. Though its sonata form shows his struggle to balance structure and expression, the result still feels organic and heartfelt—a winter’s landscape animated by inner feeling rather than only governed by strict architecture.

II. Adagio cantabile ma non tanto — “Land of Gloom, Land of Mist”

The second movement unfolds as one of Tchaikovsky’s earliest orchestral songs, intimate and deeply expressive. A plaintive oboe melody rises above soft strings, coloured by subtle harmonic shifts and delicate woodwind textures. The atmosphere is wistful and still, like a memory glimpsed through fog.

Here, his gift for melody finds full voice, anticipating the emotional depth of his later symphonies and ballets.

III. Scherzo: Allegro scherzando giocoso

The third movement transforms a piano scherzo Tchaikovsky had written as a student into an effervescent orchestral dance. Its light, quicksilver textures sparkle with rhythmic energy and humor.

The contrasting trio offers a lilting waltz, already showing the composer’s instinctive affinity for the dance rhythms that would later define Swan Lake and The Nutcracker.

IV. Finale: Andante lugubre — Allegro moderato — Allegro maestoso

The finale begins in shadow, with a slow, somber introduction that seems to recall the opening of the symphony. Gradually, energy builds, and a bright folk tune (“I will plant, young one”) emerges, propelling the music toward exuberant celebration. The movement’s structure—dark to light, inward to outward—anticipates the emotional journeys of Tchaikovsky’s later symphonies. By the final pages, the youthful composer achieves an astonishing sense of sweep and orchestral brilliance.

In 1874, Tchaikovsky revisited the score, tightening transitions and refining the orchestration. He resisted the temptation to rewrite extensively; instead, he clarified textures and strengthened climaxes, leaving the essential spirit untouched. The result is not a different work but a more confident one—a distillation of his first artistic vision, tempered by experience.

Winter Daydreams stands apart from the nationalist style of “The Mighty Handful,” the circle of composers led by Balakirev, Cui, Mussorgsky, Borodin, and Rimsky-Korsakov. While they sought a distinctly Russian sound through folk idioms and exotic harmonies, Tchaikovsky blended Russian melody with European symphonic discipline. This synthesis—emotional, cosmopolitan, and lyrical—would define his later masterpieces.

In the First Symphony, we hear the seeds of that voice: tender yet restless, disciplined yet spontaneous.

The orchestration already shimmers with his signature transparency; his themes breathe and sing, rarely confined by formal boundaries. Beneath its youthful charm, the work contains the emotional honesty that would characterize all of Tchaikovsky’s greatest music.

While not as monumental as his later symphonies, Winter Daydreams remains one of the most beloved “first symphonies” in the repertoire—an astonishing debut that marries youthful imagination with real craft. Critics today often note its freshness and sincerity. Donald Francis Tovey called it “a work of genuine and original genius,” and Leonard Bernstein, who conducted it often, admired its “innocence of utterance” and “melancholy beauty.”

Composed: 1866–68; revised 1874

Premiere: Moscow, 15 February 1868 (Nikolai Rubinstein conducting)

Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons; 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings

Duration: approx. 45 minutes