music
ummertime oundtracks HAVE YOU EVER NOTICED THAT EVERY SEASON HAS ITS SOUNDTRACK?
W
ith each change in the natural world around us, we see, feel and especially hear things differently, related to the changes in the temperature, the changing aspect of the countryside around us and how much of our day is spent outdoors, making the most what each season has to offer. Music is such a big part of how we experience the seasonal changes, and one of the best times in the year to tune in to your inner soundtrack is the summer! This feeling of connection we have between music and summer is a long standing one. One of the earliest examples of a written piece of music, dating from between 1261-1264, about a hundred years before Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales', is the beautiful song 'Sumer is icumen in', translating approximately to 'Summer
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has arrived' or also known as 'The Cuckoo Song'. (I would recommend listening to the song recorded by the fantastic 'Hilliard Ensemble' for a taste of medieval summer music!) Every culture seems to have its own response and celebration of the arrival of summer, usually in the form of a festival. 'Bealtaine' (or 'May Festival') is the big Celtic festival beginning on May 5th, when the dark half of the year ends and the bright half of the year begins, and is celebrated with music and bonfires, marking an ancient time of purification and transition and heralding in the summer with the hope of a good harvest later in the year. (I still have great memories of the summer music festival of 'Bealtaine' in Ireland with my family and
when I hear the 'Afro Celt Sound System', it takes me right back to that time!) Memory and music are so interconnected for us all, they can be a way of re-living our best experiences as well as making us feel more connected to the world around us. We all feel and respond to music differently - we pick certain pieces to be our favourites and we often associate them with the memory of a time of year. Sometimes we feel an instant connection to a piece of music that we’ve never heard before, but which quickly becomes an old friend. Many composers have tapped into this feeling and particularly music's capacity to capture a moment of sound in time. Vivaldi’s well-loved 'Four Seasons' has been described as a tone-painting literally painting a picture in sound! This extraordinary journey through the seasons
