Summer Sunday

It has been a glorious weekend in Boston, with temperatures climbing up into the 80s both yesterday and today. Always nice to get a taste of summer in April. One of my favorite aspects of nice weather is how, with everyone’s windows open, you can hear a rich tapestry of sounds all around you. This is a particularly pleasant sensation after you’ve been holed up with all windows closed through a long winter. Yesterday morning, as I sat on my porch, I heard music all around me: a neighbor practicing piano, faint exclamations from the church choir down the street, birds chirping, car radios blaring for all to hear.

Music and the summer make a wonderful combination. I think this is partly because we enjoy hearing music as part of a broader soundscape, whether it be the loud variety of city noises or the peaceful rustlings of a more pastoral scene. This is why Tanglewood (the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s summer home) and other outdoor music festivals are so popular. Indeed, it is exceedingly pleasant to sit on the lawn out at Tanglewood, hearing one of the best orchestras in the world play as you lounge on the grass, the music mingling with the sound of rustling leaves. Or, more dramatically, to listen to a performance as rain falls around you. I'll always remember hearing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata played at my grandmother’s funeral service, while a gentle rain grew into a summer thunderstorm outside. It was a profound match of setting, music, and weather.

Everyone has their own tastes in summer music, but here are a couple of my favorite summer tracks: a great recording of the Moonlight Sonata, as well as two other tracks in a more folksy, pastoral vein. Enjoy.

Beethoven – Moonlight Sonata (YSI) (filesavr)
James Taylor – Country Road (Live) (YSI) (filesavr)
John Denver- Take Me Home, Country Roads (YSI) (filesavr)