As we skate out of snowy season, let’s reflect on the coldest time of year with a few Winter-themed songs from the Lester Levy Sheet Music Collection.
The Spring and Summer Both Are Past was published in 1853 in New York:
“The Spring and Summer both are past, And all their pleasures flown;
The Autumn’s golden tinted leaves, Upon the earth are strown.”
The song then takes a turn for the dramatic, likening Winter time to death:
“The spring so fresh and warm Has all Youth’s joyous charm; the Summer is life’s Prime
Like Autumn ripen’d Age… Then comes life’s closing Page, the solemn Winter time!”
To drive home the message, the last line is repeated twice more. The song was written by William Vincent Wallace, an Irish composer who became an American citizen in 1854. Wallace also wrote several operas, orchestral works, and popular songs.
The Winter Garden Glide shows the Winter Garden in Pittsburgh, an indoor ice hockey rink claimed here to be the largest in the world—it’s unclear if this was an accurate claim. The rink is surrounded by several ice skaters and hockey players. The song also incorporates a few popular ragtime rhythms in the chorus: “For there’s nothing like ragtime skating, Rounding the rink with you.”
The Levy collection also has Winter-themed polkas & dances that contain no lyrics. The Winter’s Night (undated, published in Philadelphia) features a beautiful illustration of a snowy mansion bathed in moonlight. A mysterious figure stands beneath an archway on the left, and the foreground seems to reveal an icy lake with fresh skate tracks.
Of course, it’s important to be safe when ice skating on a lake, as we are reminded by Matilda Toots. This undated song published in New York tells the story of Matilda falling through the ice as she puts her skates on, only to be saved by the song’s narrator:
“They used the proper remedies, and quickly brought her to.
I called a cab and saw her home– and saving thus her life,
Matilda Toots agreed next day to be my darling wife;
And as the water did not spoil those fur topp’d button’d boots,
Why in those boots—identical boots—I married Matilda Toots.”
The song has also been recorded with flute accompaniment.
Wishing you a warm and wonderful spring from the Lester Levy Sheet Music Collection!