Thomas Doughty: View on the Hudson in Autumn, 1850, via the National Gallery of Art
The 21st night of September?
Love was changin’ the minds of pretenders
While chasin’ the clouds away.”
Though none are quite as recognizable as Earth, Wind & Fire’s 1978 classic “September,” there are plenty of classical art songs about the autumn season. Fall, with its golden hues, crisp air, and waning daylight, has provided ample inspiration for music and poetry. For some, the season is cause for reflection or nostalgia. For others, it can act as a metaphor for the summer of life drawing to a close. Full of richness yet signaling impending decay, it is a time of both beauty and sadness.
We’ve collected an assortment of songs in German, French, English, and even Swedish, each with their own take on the fall season. So, grab yourself a pumpkin spice latte and get cozy with some autumnal vocal music.
1. Franz Schubert: Herbst
Franz Schubert (1797–1828) wrote “Herbst” in April 1828, but it was not discovered and published until 1895, almost 70 years long after his death. The text comes from a poem by Ludwig Rellstab. It paints a desolate picture of late autumn, where the chilly wind blows through bare woods and meadows. The narrator reminisces about the springtime, when he held his beloved to his heart amid the roses. But now, “Winds, blow cold over the hillside! So do the roses of love die.” The tremolando in the right hand of the piano evokes the blustery autumn wind, while the melancholy bass melody captures the narrator’s heartbreak.
2. Johannes Brahms: Herbstgefühl
Clara Schumann considered this song a masterpiece and reportedly wept whenever she heard it. However, she was worried about her friend and its author, Johannes Brahms (1833–1897). He said it reflected his current emotional state, having suffered career setbacks and the recent loss of his mother. Written in 1867 with text by Adolf von Schack, “Herbstgefühl” reflects on the inevitability of death, just as autumn must strip the trees of their leaves. The narrator asks, “Why still trifle, like the wind in the bushes, with the withered happiness that remains? Surrender to rest, soon that happiness too will die.” An unusually spare piano accompaniment for Brahms recalls the denuded trees in the poem, while the stormy middle section signals the narrator’s trembling at the thought of death.
3. Richard Strauss: September
Richard Strauss’s (1864–1949) evocation of autumn is less bleak than the previous two songs, though the season still serves as a metaphor for death. “September” is the second song of his Vier letze Lieder (Four Last Songs). Composed in 1948, they represent the composer’s farewell to a lifetime of masterful lieder-writing. Each of the four elegiac songs presents a kind of transition: from winter to spring (“Frühling”), summer to fall (“September”), day to night (“Beim Schlafengehen”), and finally, life to death (“Im Abendrot”). In Herman Hesse’s poem “September,” summer blissfully accepts its end (“Summer smiles, astonished and weak, in the dying garden dream”). Strauss’s rich harmonies and colorful orchestration suggest the vibrant hues of late summer and early autumn. Finally, the soaring vocal line comes to rest in hushed reverence as summer closes its weary eyes.
4. Gabriel Fauré: Automne
Written in 1878, “Automne” is one of Gabriel Fauré’s (1845–1924) most beloved mélodies. Setting text by Armand Silvestre, “Automne” plays on the dichotomy between the ever-cycling seasons and our inability to turn back the clock. The “misty skies and heartbreaking horizons” of autumn awaken the narrator’s longing for the joys of his distant youth, the season again becoming a metaphor for the inevitability of the passage of time. Fauré captures this sense of feeling stuck as time marches on in the piano’s churning, repetitive triplets, while the searching vocal line strives ever upward to the word “oubliées” (“forgotten”).
5. Jules Massenet: Pensée d'automne
While mostly remembered as a prolific composer of operas, Jules Massenet (1842–1912) wrote over 200 solo songs. Written in 1887, “Pensée d’automne” (“Autumn thoughts”) is another setting of Armand Silvestre’s poetry. Again, autumn calls to mind the passage of time, which “slips away like a flowing stream.” But this poem is more hopeful: despite the inevitability of the changing seasons, love remains eternal. Massenet’s penchant for the operatic is evident in his songwriting, with skeletal chords and speech-like vocal writing at the beginning recalling recitative, before the rest of the song unfolds almost aria-like.
6. Jean Sibelius: Höstkväll
Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) wrote over 100 solo songs, mostly in his mother tongue, Swedish. Although his song output has been largely neglected in favor of his symphonic music, he considered them an expression of his innermost self. Written in 1903, “Höstkväll” (“Autumn Evening”) is often thought to be his best solo vocal work. Although Sibelius originally scored it for piano and voice, the orchestral version, completed the following year, befits the song’s melodrama and demanding vocal range. Viktor Rydberg’s poem paints a stark image of darkness encroaching on the earth, birds taking shelter, rain falling, and waves roaring. A traveler stands listening, entranced. The poem asks, “Does his soul feel in harmony with the song raised by the starless night? Does his grief die like a soft note beneath autumn’s mighty threnody?”
7. Benjamin Britten: Autumn
As a teenager, Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) admired the poetry of Walter de la Mare and set some of it to music. Decades later in 1968, Britten assembled five of these songs for a collection called Tit for Tat. “Although I hold no claims whatever for the songs’ importance or originality,” Britten wrote, “I do feel that the boy’s vision has a simplicity and clarity which might have given a little pleasure to the great poet, with his unique insight into a child’s mind.” Britten originally wrote the charming second song in this set, “Autumn,” in 1931 when he was just 16. Again, autumn is a metaphor for loss: just as there is a “cold rain where sweet grass was,” so too has the poet’s love been replaced by wind and his heart with tears. However, the simple rhyming scheme, short phrases, and word repetition keep the mood of the song light.
8. Gerald Finzi: Shortening Days
British composer Gerald Finzi (1901–1956) left an indelible mark on English art song in the early twentieth century. He is especially celebrated for his musical settings of Thomas Hardy, a poet with whom he felt a special kinship. Written in 1928, “Shortening Days” appears in A Young Man’s Exhortation, one of five song cycles Finzi wrote of Hardy’s poetry. Originally titled “Autumn [October] at the Homestead,” the poem paints a cozier image of autumn than some of the others in this list. However, an air of melancholy pervades Finzi’s musical treatment, like the wisps of smoke from the season’s first fire. In the second verse, Finzi paints a vivid image of the cider-maker and apple tree-shaker lumbering in with their cart, leading to a surprisingly exultant conclusion as the narrator anticipates the delicious cider to come.
9. Charles Ives: Autumn
Written in 1908, “Autumn” is the 60th song in Charles Ives’s (1874–1954) collection 114 Songs. Although it is unclear who wrote the text, it may have been authored by Ives’s wife, Harmony Twichell. Remarkably tuneful and straightforward for Ives, it ranks among his less radical works, written during a period of self-doubt in the wake of criticism. He later dismissed works composed during this time, including “Autumn,” as “weak-minded” and “retrogressive,” saying they were written in a “kind of slump.” That said, it is still a lovely, accessible song. Insistent low piano chords plod away, evoking the earth’s weariness after the hard work of harvest is complete. But a moment of radiance breaks through as the sun shines on the field, bringing with it “the Peace of God” and giving the earth permission to rest.
10. Gwyneth Walker: In Autumn
American composer Gwyneth Walker (b. 1947) wrote “In Autumn” in 1993. It is the third song in her song cycle Mornings Innocent, which sets the poetry of May Swenson. In the poem, the narrator expresses their wish to “lie down in autumn” like the fallen leaves, which “lie inert unseen” and “sleep face down in the burnt meadow.” Walker’s spare piano accompaniment effectively captures the desolation of the scene, while vocal melismas swirl ever higher as the birds depart for the winter.
Bonus Listening: “Autumn Leaves” sung by Kiri Te Kanawa
Although not strictly classical, check out this recording of opera diva Kiri Te Kanawa singing the jazz standard “Autumn Leaves,” accompanied by pianist and composer André Previn, guitarist Mundell Lowe, and double bassist Ray Brown. Written in 1945 by Joseph Kosma to French words by Jacques Prévert (“Les Feuillles Mortes”), “Autumn Leaves” has since become one of the most recorded jazz songs of all time, reinterpreted by a diverse array of artists.
Enjoy the full playlist!
