While Sibelius’ composed music for many plays to great effect, with the brief melodramas Ett ensamt skidspår (A Lonely Ski Trail) and Grevinnans konterfej (The Countess’ Portrait) he also demonstrated his skill in writing for drama on a miniature scale. Although Ett ensamt skidspår dates from 1925, it did not receive its first performance until 19 December 1948. Originally scored for narrator and piano, he later orchestrated it for narrator, harp and strings. The spoken text is by Bertel Gripenberg, charting the progress of a ski ride through a forest, drawing parallels between the trail in the snow that fades from sight and the waning of human thought, never finding the answers for which it is constantly striving. The narrator concludes, somewhat dejectedly, that his erratic wandering is nothing more than a ski trail that disappears with the freshly fallen snow.