10 ESSENTIAL AUTUMN ALBUMS

It's been cold the last few days, prompting a frantic rummaging through the drawers to find thicker socks to wear as well as a sudden re-appraisal of 10 (+) essential autumn albums to play for this (mostly) magical season.

The criteria for my selection simply requires music to complement distant bonfires, crunching leaves beneath well laced boots and the breath clouds that appear from one's mouth like a dry ice machine.

10. Elgar's Violin Concerto

Ever since my late afternoon walks back from Wrecclesham to Farnham when I was studying film as a student, Elgar's Violin Concerto has become a staple of my autumn playlist and this recent recording with soloist Triin Rubble playing with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra under the direction of conductor Neeme Järvi creates the right autumnal atmosphere and expresses the solace of love through the equinox-induced tempests that can appear toward the tail end of October into early November.

8. A London Symphony (Vaughan Williams)

This city symphony by Vaughan Williams captures London in all its colours, from the serene early dawn atmosphere that acts as a prelude to the hustle and bustle of the working day with all the human and vehicular traffic, to the more reflective darkening evening sunset on the Thames as the lights of the city reflect on the murky water like faded gold.

7. Great Songs From Great Britain - (Frank Sinatra) - Reprise

Apparently Sinatra was ill with a bad cold when he recorded this so didn't initially want it released. If this is him on a bad day, I only wish he had colds more often. This is a beautiful album where (much like the cover) I can imagine Frank dining at the Ritz while smoky chimney tops and red/purple skies merge and Big Ben strikes cleanly on the hour heralding the arrival of evening in the nation's capital.

Particular favourites of mine on this perfect assortment of songs from Great Britain have to be 'The Very Thought Of You', 'The Gypsy' and 'A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square' to say nothing of the exquisite 'A Garden In The Rain'.

6. To Whom It May Concern (Nat King Cole) - Capitol

I wonder if Nelson Riddle felt like he was in a semi-illicit passionate affair with Frank Sinatra considering he'd initially collaborated with Nat King Cole at Capitol Records in the year 1950 before the resurgence of the Italian 'Swingin' Dick' came back to town.

However, though the song selection on 'To Whom It May Concern' may not be the strongest example of their work together over fifteen years, I've always loved the gentle, post summer vibe that suggests youthful romances fraying at the edges as the confusion of the rules of love becomes ever more apparent.

4. Songs Of Love And Parting (Robin Williamson)

Robin Williamson (post Incredible String Band) delivers a stunning album of original songs written as if they were old songs from the folk canon, including the stunning 'Return No More' as well as Dylan Thomas tribute 'For Mr Thomas' which Van Morrison later recorded as a cover version.

The entire set feels like the essence of Edinburgh in Autumn with gently strummed harps, introspective lyrics and rousing refrains accompanied by bag pipes that miraculously don't overwhelm Williamson's vocals.

A 10/10 masterpiece from Scotland's most talented musical bard.

5. 'Cycles' (1968) and 'Where Are You' (1957) - (Frank Sinatra) - Reprise/Capitol

This album is one of my favourite of Frank's. My feelings for 'Cycles' has to do with the time of year I first heard it. It was early October and the leaves were slowly falling from the branches and collecting outside in soggy heaps. The bonfires were abundant at that time and the autumnal smell of woodsmoke intoxicating. I played 'Cycles' without pe-conception and it immediately spun some kind of unique magic. In many ways it's a cross over album as Frank dares to dip his toes in the 1960s pop milieu for the first time. For me though, the atmosphere of this record is the same as that classic movie starring Burt Lancaster "The Swimmer". Sinatra is similar to Neddy Merrill here, swimming across various pools in different people's gardens, uninvited perhaps. I'm not sure what Joni Mitchell would have made of Sinatra's "Both Sides Now", but personally I love it. Frank makes the song more joyful because of its faster tempo. There's a hyperactive harpsichord in the background jangling away, but even that discrepancy lends the rendition a unique flavour.

'Little Green Apples', 'By The Time I Get To Phoenix' and 'Cycles' are all stand outs on this cult Frank album, however, special mention must go to 'Gentle On My Mind' which simultaneously has the most ludicrous and laser precision-like autumn lyric ever.

Well I dip my cup of soup back from the gurgling crackling caldron in some train yard, my beard a roughening coal pile and a dirty hat pulled low across my face

Hard to imagine Frank with a 'roughening coal pile and a dirty hat' but who knows? Maybe he went on the occasional Don Draper-like excursion into secret second lives when he wasn't partying hard in Vegas.

After his iconic 'In The Wee Small Hours' torch song concept album, Sinatra increasingly became even more despairing and pre-suicidal in his follow up albums utilising the same genre of heartbreak ballad collections. Albums such as 'Where Are You', 'Only The Lonely' and 'Point Of No Return' tell you all you need to know about their general tone by their gloomy titles. 'Where Are You' has the feel of someone stuck in a small town missing a lost love who has left them for bigger dreams. Hey, I recognise that trope. Is my George Bailey complex showing or what?

Highlight track on the album has to be 'Lonely Town' from Bernstein's 'On The Town' where Frank brings an almost operatic grandeur to the desperation felt by the narrator of the song.

"Unless there's love, the world's an empty place and every town's a lonely town."

4. The Rodgers And Hart Songbook/Ella & Louis/Like Someone In love (Ella Fitzgerald) - Verve

There's an urban cosiness to Ella Fitzgerald's two volume set of songs by Rogers And Hart that is truly irresistible. I can just imagine hopping on a NY subway to DeLancey Street and grabbing some discount winter clothes before settling down with a burger and coke float in a diner somewhere. Of course, back in the day the only place I could find a burger and coke float in my rural town was a Wimpy outlet on the high street where they tended to stretch the term ‘fast food’ to breaking point.

The three Ella and Louis albums on Verve are consummate and I might happily include their 'Porgy and Bess' collab here, too, were it not for the 'Summertime' setting of the Gershwin musical from which the songs derive. However, the first two duet albums they made are a perfect demonstration of their well suited talents coming together and creating a consistently buzzy mood of light hearted happiness which makes one think of walks in leaf-filled Central Park on lazy Sundays before heading to a fancy restaurant for lunch. Essential for any autumn collection.

'Like Someone In Love' (also on Verve) also has to accompany the R & H and E & L Verve sets as it includes the song 'Midnight Sun' which though it may not specify autumn in its lyrics, captures the atmosphere of the season perfectly to my mind.

Your lips were like a red and ruby chalice warmer than the summer night
The clouds were like an alabaster palace rising to a snowy height
Each star it's own aurora borealis suddenly you held me tight
I could see the midnight sun

I can't explain the silver rain that found me or was that moonlit veil
The music of the universe around me or was that a nightingale
And then your arms miraculously found me suddenly the sky turned pail
I could see the midnight sun

Was there such a night? It's a thrill I still don't quite believe
But after you were gone there was still some stardust on my sleeve

The pain of it may dwindle to an ember and the stars forget to shine
And we may see the meadow in December, Icy white and crystalline
But oh my darlin’ always I'll remember when your lips were close to mine
And I saw the Midnight Sun

3. The First Of A Million Kisses (Fairground Attraction)

This album brings to mind bundles of wet leaves, cold biting air, first kisses and the smoke rising from Joss sticks whilst wallowing in the romantic reverie of a first crush with a slight sniffle from glistening nostrils that resemble a slug's trail.

My favourite track on the album will forever be 'Moon On The Rain' recalling days half self-identifying myself as a 'Jitter' because all the prettiest girls at school seemed to be part of that boho/hippy tribe all the while maintaining diplomacy with the 'Plebs'.

It also brings to mind the smell of coffee carried on the cold, frosty air all the way from Roy's Tradewinds coffee house down the length of Nelson Street as I'd walk past the windows of fish and chips shops all steamed up with a warm, golden glow from the bubbling, cauldron-like cookers inside.

I’m getting into this Glenn Campbell way of writing I must say.

2. Who Can I Turn To (Tony Bennett) - Columbia

I can just imagine Tony turning up the collars of his autumn coat as he attempts to shake off his summer hangover where temporary love affairs have disappeared like wisps of bonfire smoke that hang suspended in air like mist in a valley.

Not as despairing as Frank with his 'Where Are You' album, Tony sounds emotionally stable and ready to chance his arm once more in the realm of love and there is a nice balance of reflective ('Who Can I Turn To') meets with happy-go-lucky ('Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams') which gives the album an expertly calibrated autumn feel. Of course, it makes sense that 'Autumn Leaves' would be one of the highlights amongst this consistently high value set of songs.

1. Brahms Symphonies/Concertos/Serenades

Basically, Brahms IS autumn. I think he must have only composed music in the autumn season and vacationed the rest of the year. Playing any one of his symphonies or concertos from October through to November is the safest way to transition from post summer melancholy into reflective autumn meditations on one's own mortality. Have not yet tried listening to any of this with a pumpkin spiced Latte. Actually, I've never even tasted anything related to pumpkin including soup.

I would recommend Bruno Walter's Columbia set of four Brahms Symphonies to start with, followed by George Szell and Leon Fleischer's two piano concertos on Sony Masterworks as well Ginette Nevu's recording of Brahm's violin concerto on EMI and ending with Haitink's recording of the Serenades on Phillips (shout out to geek mensch, Dave Hurwitz, of YouTube fame for that recommendation).