Celebrate Midsummer with music for St. John’s Eve.
The Feast Day of St. John the Baptist (June 24) is like Christmas, in that it coincides with solstice time. But St. John’s Eve is more like Halloween. It’s a time for the lighting of bonfires against evil spirits – when witches are believed to rendezvous with powerful forces, such as the demon Chernobog, who emerges from the Bald Mountain – as the sun again pursues a southerly course.
This week on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll surrender to Midsummer madness, with Modest Mussorgsky’s “St. John’s Night” from his opera “Sorochinsky Fair,” Alfred Schnittke’s puckish “(K)ein Sommernachtsdraum” (“NOT a Midsummer Night’s Dream”), and selections from Gunnar de Frumerie’s ballet “St. John’s Eve.”
Leaping over a bonfire at this time is seen as a surety of prosperity and good luck. Tuning in to “The Lost Chord” doubly so. Keep an ear out for “Midsummer Night’s Fiends,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
PAINTING: “Midsummer Night” (1926), by Nikolai Astrup
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