After the celebrations of Easter, we’re back to the mostly pagan world of Summer festivities.
There’s an Italian (rather tardy) cuckoo and thunderstorm courtesy of Vivaldi; a reminiscence of Summer past by James Agee and Samuel Barber; a holiday in Switzerland with Arthur Honegger; and, most of all, a celebration of the glories of the Summer sunrise by Ravel, Richard Strauss, Nielsen and Schönberg.
But, first of all, to get this aestival festival started, from Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess...
Not quite sure what a cuckoo’s doing in Italy in Summer (maybe Vivaldi’s ornithology was a bit wonky) but his weather forecasting seems pretty accurate…
Allegro non molto
Adagio e piano – Presto e forte
Presto
Summer’s a time for holidays: Honegger goes on a staycation in Switzerland…
… while Carl Nielsen manages to get away from his native Denmark to celebrates sunrise in the Aegean:
Then there’s those seemingly endless days of childhood Summers:
And to finish, a few more spectacular Summer dawns.
In ancient Greece (kind of)…
… in the Alps…
… and (best of the lot, to my mind) after the eerie Wild Hunt of the Summer Wind, See the Sun!
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Pontarddulais!
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