Forgive me if I strike a slightly sombre, or maybe just reflective, mood with this post. Over the years, especially as my own seem to pass ever more quickly, I have found the season of autumn to be an unwelcome visitor.
It is a reminder, however beautiful the colours may be for a few days, that there is decay in everything. As I write, rain is lashing down and strong winds are stripping trees of what leaves remain – to reveal the nothingness, the skeletons, that lie beneath.
Yes, I know it is part of an essential process, you might even assert a long-term harbinger of spring; but I cannot look at it that way right now. It is, for me, more of a summation of things past, of things gone for ever, whether they be happy events, of which I was fortunate to share many this summer – or people who are no longer here.
Anniversaries fall throughout the year for all of us, obviously. But autumn. Autumn, in its greyness and early nightfalls, has its way of bringing them all together. Which is why it is particularly apt that in the Christian calendar the feast of All Souls should be commemorated at this time of year.
So today I will be brief with my own words and let the music of my favourite composer, Franz Schubert (as if you needed telling) do the work. Many wrongly assume that Schubert’s brief life – just 31 years – was a sad one. He was, in fact, much loved and loved almost as much. I have no idea how many of his 600 songs or more I have heard, but this one, Allerseelen, set to the words of Johann Jacobi and written for the feast of All Souls, captures precisely my feelings of autumn and what it brings.
This version by Ian Bostridge is in the throat-lumping category. Each of the three verses has exactly the same melody, yet each is treated with different colour and emphasis, at times assertive and others almost whispering and yet never losing the note. Add to that the crystal clarity of his diction and you have 4.5 heavenly minutes to savour and reflect.
And no, you do not need to be a Christian or even a person of faith to appreciate this. All of us, at some stage, will wish this for those we have loved. Here is the translation (by Richard Wigmore) –
And here is the music, click on the image –
