The Seasons, Op. 37, is a set of twelve short character pieces for solo piano by the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Each piece is the characteristic of a different month of the year in Russia.
The Seasons was commenced shortly after the premiere of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto, and continued while he was completing his first ballet, Swan Lake.[2]
In 1875, Nikolay Matveyevich Bernard, the editor of the St. Petersburg music magazine Nouvellist, commissioned Tchaikovsky to write 12 short piano pieces, one for each month of the year. Bernard suggested a subtitle for each month’s piece. Tchaikovsky accepted the commission and all of Bernard’s subtitles, and in the December 1875 edition of the magazine, readers were promised a new Tchaikovsky piece each month throughout 1876.
The (poetic) epigraphs that appeared on publication of the pieces were chosen by Bernard, not by Tchaikovsky. In 1886 the publisher P. Jurgenson acquired the rights to The Seasons and the piece has been reprinted many times. – via wikipedia.org
Mai (May): Les nuits de mai (Starlit Nights)
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Mai
- What a night! What bliss all about!
- I thank my native north country!
- From the kingdom of ice, from the kingdom of snowstorms and snow,
- How fresh and clean May flies in!
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From – Sergey Baklykov / Real Russia – My video sketch to the spring in St Petersburg, Russia. Filmed in one day on Saturday (30th of March, 2019) on the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island, Palace Square, Isaac’s Square and Nevsky Prospect. Music composed by Pyotr Tchaikovsky from “The Seasons” (May).
Photo credit: http://www.unsplash.com/@sarahderrittphotos
Dispatches from the Asylum 