STANFORD IN SEPTEMBER

If you have a music library as vast as mine (by which I mean mostly CDs and records), you eventually reach a point where you simply and instinctively intuit—from piles of them, like a Jedi Knight—which album to put on and play, almost like a blind tasting that somehow feels supernaturally preordained.

This morning I put on Stanford, and with the September sunshine and the flickering shadows of tree branches, their senescent leaves dancing across the windowsill where I sit and work, it was just perfect.

There’s something tremendously complementary about this warm, romantic music by one of Ireland’s greatest composers—it stirs the soul like a well-made cup of tea on a cold day.

The two Rhapsodies of Stanford I played—No. 1 (for Hans Richter) and No. 2 (“The Lament for the Son of Ossian”)—are just beautiful: the second more sombre than the first, yet both somehow reflective of this changing season, where the last of the summer sunshine meets the chilly nip of autumn’s arrival.

Poor Brahms (my staple for this time of year) now looks nervous on the shelf, knowing he’s not the only show in town for this leaf blown season.

Stanford in September (autumn) is now what Tchaikovsky and Sibelius are for me in November and December (winter), or Mozart and Handel from March through June (spring and summer).

How great it is to have music that so seamlessly accompanies our psychological and emotional changes with the seasons, providing a sympathetic soundtrack as we make the necessary adjustments—like an expert tailor fitting a suit or an autumn/winter coat.