Jäätunud Hommik (piano sheet music) — how an icy morning on the Baltic Sea became my new composition

There are moments that simply can't be shaken off, no matter how cold you were. This one: a February morning on the Estonian coast, the sun barely above the horizon, the temperature well below my personal comfort level—somewhere around minus 20 degrees Celsius.

For many years, I've regularly traveled with my wife to her homeland of Estonia. A country that never ceases to amaze me: both modern and deeply rooted in its traditions, with lush nature, a surprisingly diverse music scene, and a turbulent history. But on this particular morning, none of that mattered. It was simply cold.

The Baltic Sea—called Läänemeri, "West Sea" in Estonian—was frozen over. Ice floes piled up on the shore, meters high, as if thrown there. The sun barely rose above the horizon, more a promise than a source of warmth. And the air was filled with that sound you only truly understand there: the quiet, almost eerie crackling and creaking of ice shifting under your weight.

Honestly, at that moment I wanted one thing above all else—to get back to my warm bed as quickly as possible. No romantic thoughts of music, no "I have to capture this moment." Just cold feet and the question of why I was voluntarily standing on a frozen beach at this hour.

And yet: it was one of those images that simply stays with you. The vastness, the silence, the barely perceptible movement of the ice—something of it lingered long after my feet had thawed. A few weeks later, back at the piano, I tried to recapture that feeling. Not the cold itself, but the light, the stillness, and that quiet unease beneath it—the sense that something was stirring beneath the apparent silence.

This is how the piano sheet music for Jäätunud Hommik (Icy Morning) came about: a piece that moves harmonically in cool Maj7 and Lydian timbres, carried by a tranquil ostinato in the left hand—almost like the steady crunch of ice itself. If desired, the player can, after a short improvisation section at the end, break free from the written score and develop the mood further on their own.

The piece was released as a single edition in the Piano Works Series, for advanced players, difficulty level 3-4 out of 6. It thus stands alongside Mama Madeleine, Crossroads and Louisiana Café — only with a significantly cooler climate in its title.

I hope that you can capture some of this atmosphere while playing. And perhaps one day you'll have the opportunity to gaze upon a frozen Baltic Sea on a similar morning—ideally with warmer shoes than I was wearing.

The sheet music for Jäätunud Hommik is now available in printed form and also as a PDF download in the shop.

Heartfelt grooves,

Jan Luley