… I wonders where the flowers is?

The change of seasons is a magical time. We humans are completely obsessed with it, and love to draw comparisons between the earth’s seasons and the seasons of our own lives. It should be no surprise, then, that there are tons of musical compositions celebrating Spring – way more than good old Vivaldi.

Here is a short movement from “The Seasons”, a ballet by Russian composer Alexander Glazunov. Born into a wealthy family in imperial times, Glazunov’s politics and style of music went out of fashion after the 1917 revolution. Glazunov loved his country, though, and stayed in Russia for another decade, to ensure that the St. Petersburg Conservatory (arguably the most important music school in Russia) didn’t collapse amid the turmoil. He eventually settled in Paris.

The video ends abruptly. The music wasn’t written to be segmented – if you listen to the whole ballet, Spring flows seamlessly into Summer.

There’s a saying among church musicians: A good hymn-writer can teach us plenty of things, but George Herbert teaches us that good hymns can also be good poetry. Indeed, look up his name in an English hymnal, and you’ll find the pages to his hymns more worn out than others.

There is a ton of great music written for Easter – no surprise there. But like hymnody, it’s hard to find music that captures the joy of the season without going overboard into a sea of shallowness. The “Hallelujah Chorus” is just too much for me. Thank goodness for George Herbert’s poetry, set by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Happy Easter!

The final movement of Bach‘s St. Matthew Passion is a tearful lullaby to Jesus: “rest sweetly, good night!” There is a figure that Bach uses over and over again to emulate the sound of sobbing – you can hear it clearly at 2:26, but it is found throughout the piece.

But the best part of this piece is the 7-8 suspension that happens at every important cadence!

if you have no idea what that means, let me explain:

A cadence is a stopping point. A suspension is when you expect a certain note at a certain time, but the composer delays that certain note to intensify the feeling of resolve that you get when you finally hear said note.

So, at 4:48, we expect to hear:
sol fa me re DO

but instead we hear:
sol fa me re TI DO

And that TI, it hurts, but it hurts so good.

This version is very tastefully done. If I ever get to conduct this piece, I assure you I will make that suspension as tasteless as possible.