Eight seasons?

 

Snow on the ground in mid March reminds me how much the seasons punctuate our lives, and also how much they are changing with the climate. Even the ritual of changing the clocks to BST [soon to be renamed “UKST” I fear] at the end of the month, just by one hour, has an impact. The birds too seem to know in their singing, unless they just respond to the wishful thinking evident in the reappearance of garden furniture. I enjoy adding my own punctuation with seasonal music. But all is not what it seems. 

At the moment I'm listening to one of many versions of what is known as “The Cold Song” (aka “Frost Scene” or “Cold Genius Awakes”), an aria from Henry Purcell's opera King Arthur (1691). The “Spirit of Winter”  reluctantly awake, sings “ What power art thou, who from below, hast made me rise unwillingly and slow, from beds of everlasting snow?...”, later begging to be allowed to freeze again. Many modern performances, whether in baroque or rock idiom, are sung haltingly, shiveringly, in musical onomatopoeia. Other versions produce a similar effect in the string accompaniment. If you’re not familiar with it, imagine Antonio Vivaldi’s Winter with “attitude”.  I still have no idea what relevance the aria has to the opera’s tale of King Arthur and Merlin fighting the Saxons, but it stands alone as a powerful piece in its own right.  

It’s also a good time to listen to Águas de Março (the Waters of March) by Antônio ("Tom") Carlos Jobim (1972), sung by innumerable others as well as the composer. The lyrics catalogue the various debris carried down in the floodwaters typical of March, marking the end of summer in Rio de Janeiro. The music gives the impression of a perpetual downward movement, perhaps indicating the passing of daily life through to acceptance of eventual death. It has been described as the best Brazilian song of all time, even an unofficial anthem, and writing it is said to have had a profound positive influence on Jobim’s mental wellbeing. When he wrote its equally popular English translation, this was mostly with the Northern Hemisphere in mind. Many of the words’ meanings are superficially unchanged but this time represent meltwaters at the end of Winter, and add the lyrics “the promise of Spring” and “joy in your heart”. I enjoy both versions. Two seasons in one song.

For some years I have listened to Tango Nuevo from Argentina, developed by Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992). Not for dancing, this "new tango" was intended for listening to, and has influenced many later musicians from across genres.  Four separate pieces,  originally for  a quintet of bandoneon, double bass, piano, violin and electric guitar, referenced each of the seasons in Buenos Aires. Piazzolla sometimes played them together, and in later orchestrations by others, the collection came to be known as “The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires”. Leonid Desyatnikov’s arrangement quoted Vivaldi within the Piazzolla, contrasting the seasons between the hemispheres. In 2006 violinist Gidon Kremer recorded a juxtaposition of both the Argentine and Italian works with equal prominence despite their 250 year separation. The disc is titled Eight Seasons. But these musings are not confined to musical imagination. The Sami people of Finnish Lapland described in detail eight distinct seasons which governed the rhythms of working on the land.  

No doubt these points of punctuation will change with the climate. Fifteen years ago I was struck by a then edgy frisson of dislocation between the seasons. A Eurocentric perspective, but I was disorientated by the warm sun at Christmas in Dunedin, New Zealand. The usual cues weren't there for me. Was it Summer or Winter, December or June?  A global ball-game of two fragile halves.

LINKS

King Arthur (opera) - Wikipedia

Cold Genius Matteo (Purcell) (youtube.com)

The Waters of March: The Story Behind The Song - Connect Brazil

An analysis of  Waters of March - The Science ofSnail

Estaciones Porteñas - Wikipedia

8 seasons - Rovaniemi international

Eight Seasons (gramophone.co.uk)

Second helpings from someone else's table (cambriancrumbs.blogspot.com)