Nature is not an enemy as it is in Vaughan Williams. Time is merely the canvas which the still-life fills. Irregular bar-lengths permit no rhythm to take hold. Even the middle section's romantic string melody with old-fashioned harps runs sounds like frozen homage to the earlier composer. The jagged opening is as vicious as ice.
Aggressive trombones punch with glacial glare.
The clarinet speaks with chilly clarity - God this is an awful place. Banshee strings shiver. The percussionists have a busy night. The glockenspiel glistens, vibrating wine-glass rims sing like Vaughan Williams's wordless choir and the scraped gong hurts like fingernails on a blackboard. It begins with the sounds of the research ship crashing through the ice and of an avalanches of powdered snow falling on the deck.