Chaikovsky’s First Symphony is nicknamed “Winter Dreams”, although in recent years that’s often more literally translated as “Winter Daydreams”. I like the original, if slightly less accurate, translation, as that’s the one I’ve known for decades.

But it’s not his first symphony that’s on my mind right now. I just listened to a performance of his First Piano Concerto that I preserved from a radio broadcast a few years ago of the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Robin Ticciati with Stephen Hough as the soloist, and it’s the middle movement that’s captured my attention.

As beautiful as that second movement is, I wonder if it tends to get lost between those bravura outer movements. It opens with one of Chaikovsky’s loveliest melodies, which I picture as someone sitting by a fire in an old Russian country house and looking out the window at a snow-covered vista. The sprightly middle section is a wild Russian sleigh ride through the snowy landscape. At least that’s the image that I conjure up when I hear the music.

Stephen Hough thinks of the second movement as Nutcracker music; he imagines the first melody as a child opening presents on Christmas Day and the middle section as a mystery fairy land of strange lights and weird creatures, as he explained during an interview during the intermission.

What does your imagination conjure up when you hear the music?

Meanwhile, my street has never been plowed, but enough trucks and SVUs have driven through to make it passable, though there are still some parked vehicles that might not be able to dig themselves out until some real thaw comes along.

It was 5° F (-15° C or 258 K—I rather like the sound of that Kelvin scale) when I set out the trash yesterday morning. I wasn’t certain the sanitation workers would be picking up the trash (they were already a day late due to the snow), and neither were most of my neighbors as I was one of the few who actually set out the trash. But it was picked up, so I won’t have to worry about keeping it for another week. Unlike most of my neighbors.

Today it’s supposed to be a few degrees cooler.