About his piece "October," composer Michael Torke wrote:
“When the air gets that snap of cold, accompanied by the smell of burning leaves, and the days are shortening, and the frisson of decay is met with glorious fall colors, a happy/sad feeling emerges, which calls to mind the inevitable changing of seasons.”
Michael Torke's music, with its driving rhythms and rich autumnal colors, captures that feeling — both happy and sad. But perhaps the phrase “frisson of decay” isn’t the best way to describe sadness. Because fallen leaves don’t just decay.
In his classic book "Mushrooms Demystified," mycologist David Arora wrote:
“If there were no vehicle for the disposal of dead matter, we would soon be buried under a blanket of inert debris.
Fungi, along with bacteria, are precisely that vehicle. They are nature’s recyclers, reducing complex organic compounds into simple building blocks. In a profound way, fungi are life-givers as well as destroyers.
And those gorgeous fall colors remind us that leaves — the tree’s food factories — have done their work of turning sunlight into carbohydrates. By autumn, they’re worn out.
They’re no longer useful to the tree, and in fact become a liability, catching snow and ice. So the trees let them go.
Torke’s "October" music suggests a walk through the autumn woods, with leaves... colorful, fluttering, dying... drifting down, until the piece closes with resolution.
And that is how October itself ends: the growing season finished, yet life quietly renewing itself beneath our feet.
