Bah! Chernobog cares nothing for your puny strawberry moon!
This Thursday morning on WPRB, we leap over tepid news blurb observations about the solstice – and probably a few bonfires – to celebrate St. John’s Eve.
Though the actual summer solstice may occur anytime between June 21 and June 25, June 24 is the Feast Day of St. John.
St. John’s Eve is a time for the harvesting of St. John’s Wort, with its miraculous healing powers. It’s a time to seek the fern flower, which can bring good fortune, wealth, and the ability to understand animal speech. It’s a time for the lighting of bonfires against evil spirits, and even dragons, which roam the earth, as the sun again pursues a southerly course. And it’s a time when witches are believed to rendezvous with powerful forces, such as the demon Chernobog, who emerges from the Bald Mountain on St. John’s Eve at the climax of Disney’s “Fantasia” (though fair weather pagan Deems Taylor claims it’s Walpurgis Night).
Not surprisingly, after a long, hard winter, the Scandinavian countries are crazy for Midsummer. Leaping over a bonfire is seen as a surety of prosperity and good luck. Not to light a bonfire is seen as offering up one’s own house for destruction by fire. The bigger the fire, the further at bay are kept evil spirits. The further the evil spirits, the better the guarantee of a good harvest.
We’ll have music connected in one way or another with Midsummer rituals, including dances from “The Midsummer Marriage” by Sir Michael Tippett, the ballet “St. John’s Eve” by Gunnar de Frumerie, and Modest Mussorgsky’s “St. John’s Night,” an earlier, less-familiar incarnation of his popular musical picture “A Night on Bald Mountain,” as heard in his opera, “Sorochinsky Fair.”
In addition, we’ll have Alfred Schnittke’s contrarian rondo, “(K)ein Sommernachtstraum.” The root of the title is German for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” but the postmodern inclusion of the “K” in parentheses modifies the meaning to “NOT a Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Indeed! Schnittke sets up the listener with a soothing notturno in the style of Mozart or Schubert, but very soon the atmosphere begins to shift.
Also featured will be Rebecca Clarke’s “Midsummer Moon,” Aaron Copland’s “Midsummer Mood,” Hugo Alfven’s “Midsummer Vigil” (conducted by the composer), and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” with additional musical portraits of the denizens of Fairyland, Oberon, Titania and Puck.
Since, after all, it is the Eve of St. John, there will also be performances by violinist Lara St. John’s polka band, Polkastra, from their wedding album, “I Do!”
Start piling high the wood. We’ll touch things off tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 EDT on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. Once again, we’re strapping on the goat leggings, on Classic Ross Amico.
