There is a book called: YEAR OF WONDER: Classical Music for Every Day. This book is just that: one tune for each day of the year. These are classical pieces. I don’t like all the tunes proposed, but I must say I also discovered some beautiful/intriguing masterpieces (I’m looking at you Hildegard of Bingen of the 12th century).
It offers more Christmas pieces in December, more liturgic songs for Easter, etc. In other words, it follows the season and the calendar, even if it’s only the Christian calendar.
I do not want to debate whether they are right or not to do that. What I want to discuss here, though, is that I do listen to different songs fitting the changing weather. In the fall, as we are now, this Oct 14th and it’s been raining for 3 days, I listen to Satie. His Gymnopedies are a great illustration of a walk on peaceful autumn day with a bright but not hot sun accompanying you. Or Nat King Cole: Autumn leaves. Always a great one. It captures the subtle sadness of the season. In rock, well, for reasons I cannot decipher, I love the album “Bringing down the horses” by the Wallflowers. Some songs by Donovan like Mellow Yellow or Season of the witch are appropriate listening while the eternal rain knocks at your windows.
You also have some artist who will put together a selection of song to describe a particular season. For the Fall, John O’Conor has an album simply called “Autumn songs” that is delightful to listen to. For the winter, my favorite is still Evelyn Glennie and Philip Sheppard: Winter Wonderland. So far I haven’t found a better album to spend an afternoon watching the different sculpture blown by icy winds.
If you want to get really out there, you can also enjoy the music of Francis Cabrel, a French singer songwriter that has a few album fitting perfectly the autumn we’re going through. I recommend “Hors Saison” or “Les beaux degats”.
