“Why is summer mist romantic and autumn mist just sad?”
Dodie Smith*

Summer is the season when the sun shines brightly, the sky is hardly ever overcast, the water in ponds, rivers and seas get thoroughly warmed. In case it becomes too hot, one can always go for a walk in a shadowy park or wood. Every season is pleasant in its own way. Winter, for example, is full of holidays and celebrations, presents, surprises and snowy merry-makings. Spring is the time when nature awakens and early bloomers begin to grow. Autumn can be rainy or chilly, and yet beautiful, full of multi-coloured leaves.

Images and pictures of the changing seasons, the whisper of greenery and birds' chirping, the splash of waves and the voice of streams,  thunderclaps and roaring of wind - all this can be manifested  in music. Many composers knew how to do this brilliantly: their musical pieces about nature became the classics. Musical sketches narrating about wildlife and natural phenomena in instrumental and piano works, vocal and choral compositions, and sometimes even in the form of program cycles, are widely known.

Summer is characterized by its own symphony of sounds. July is called “dog days of summer”, the mid-summer or its "crown". The contrast of dark greenery and straw-color yellowness of maturing ears, typical for flaming July.

July is a time when days are long, evenings are full of romance and nights are short ... Time to enjoy every day! It is in July that the feeling appears that the summer is short and will soon decline. The day begins to wane. "Peter and Paul took the hour off, Elijah - the prophet took two ones away", - says a popular proverb, as if regretting about the imminent approach of autumn. Changes in the weather, a gradual fading of green color tints in nature involuntarily evoke corresponding feelings and emotions.

Our feelings are diverse, we cannot frame the term for each of them. Then music can help - it performs magic and influence our feelings and emotions. While listening to a piece of music associated with summer time, a person experiences strong emotions; one piece causes him anxiety, the other, on the contrary, a feeling of peace and tranquility.

Musical selection "July – dog days of summer" is posted in our Sound Library.

On the cover: Jar (Honey bowl). England (ceramics). Russia, Moscow (setting). 1889. Royal Doulton factory (ceramics); M. Lincke workshop (setting), Bolin firm.

*Dorothy Gladys "Dodie" Smith (1896-1990) - English novelist and playwright. She is known for writing the children’s novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians (1956).