SEASONAL MUSIC

One of my students gave his senior recital last night on piano. The program featured a French set which included the 2nd Gymnopedie by Erik Satie (the above has the audio of an Aldo Cicollini recording). I may have been influenced by the 98-degree heat here yesterday, but the Gymnopedie cycle strikes me as somehow very much hot weather, summertime music. Certain music can suggest a very strong seasonal sense (certain foods do the same kind of thing...). Why is that?

Obviously, if a piece has a direct reference to a time of year (Christmas music, for example, or The Rite of Spring) then that's one thing. But what about music that doesn't make an overt statement one way or the other? Personal associations, like where and when you first heard something, can make a big impact on each subsequent listen. (For example, I would guess a lot of people think of summer when they hear Lady Gaga's "Telephone" b/c that's when the video got big.) But could there also be something in the sound or expressive quality of a piece that makes it more easily associate-able with one season over another?

I think you could make an argument that the Gymnopedie have a stark austerity that's evocative of the scorched, dry, summer earth—a relaxed, still quality that reminds me of how your body feels when the sun has sapped you of all energy or desire to move, and you're just sitting there, roasting, as steam rises up from the ground.

Then again, my clearest early memory of listening to that music was on a cassette tape I had in my no-A/C car one hot summer in North Carolina, so my perspective might be a bit skewed on this one...