Welcome In The Autumn

If you could express the beauty of autumn through music, surely it would be in a song like this. Gentle, lovely, and peaceful, it has a flowing ease about it that might just make you want to pause and notice the world around you. It has a hint of a bittersweet quality to it as well which is suggested in the poetry of the lyrics. The sweetness comes from the beauty, the bitterness in the all-too-fleeting brevity of it.

This is probably a bit deep for some of your students, but older ones may be at a point in their development where philosophical thoughts are starting to form. If you can take the time to open a discussion about time passing, seasons, even the cycle of life and death as it applies to nature, this would be a good stepping stone.

This is also a good tune for older students if you use both parts. Part 2 is optional, but it makes for a nice duet if you choose to use it. It's a lower part, so alto voices would be appropriate. We have isolated both parts for rehearsal purposes and put them on our web site for free access. (See the box on page 77 for details.) If you'd rather keep it simpler and more attainable by younger students, you can certainly use it as a unison piece as well. While the song is easy enough, you can get as carried away as you choose with making it a choral piece and focusing on breath support, dynamics, attacks and releases, and so on.

On the recording you will hear a solo flute at the beginning and ending of the piece. The flute part is notated on the piano/vocal so that you can use your own solo flutist if you wish to do it live. You can substitute other instruments as well, adapting the line as needed. For example, a clarinet would play it down an octave and transpose it up a step.

The piano part is quite playable, even by less advanced players. But the orchestration on the recording is very nice and worth consideration for performances.