Welcome to the Ether Game Weekly Podcast! Fall is here, and for many, that means "Hunting Season"... especially some classical composers! So, we're exploring pieces of music all about the hunt on this podcast. Remember to keep your ears out for a portion of Tuesday night's Teaser selection. And don't forget to tune into the full show on Tuesday, September 26th at 8:00pm for a chance to win a prize!
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): THE SEASONS: September (The Hunt)
Wu Han, piano. Russian Recital (ArtistLed)
Well, fall is finally here, and while that can mean many things-fall sweaters, football, pumpkin spice, raking leaves into big trash bags-traditionally it's meant either the harvest or the hunt. Composers especially seem to be fixated on these two activities. In Tchaikovsky's musical depiction of autumn, we get both. His 12-piece cycle called The Seasons corresponds to each month. August is subtitled Harvest, while September is The Hunt. For September, we even get the call of a hunting horn heard in the opening rhythm of the piece. These pieces were serialized in 1876 in a music journal, with each piece published in the appropriate monthly issue. However, Tchaikovsky didn't even provide the titles-the magazine's editor Nikolai Bernard created them in advance, and Tchaikovsky made them to order.
