Snow Falling on a Nation

“I love the sound of snow... You can hear it even if you are only standing on a balcony. [The sound] is only minimal, not even a real noise: a breath, a trifle of a sound. You have the same thing in music: if in the score there is a pianissimo marked that ends in nothing. Up there you can feel this ‘nothing’. With an orchestra it is very difficult to achieve it. The Berlin Philharmonic manage(s) it sometimes.”

~ Claudio Abbado