Month's Mind (John Ireland)
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Month's Mind is a piece for piano solo composed in 1935 by John Ireland.[1]
The manuscript, published by Augener, is headed by a quotation from John Brand’s Observations on Popular Antiquities (1777).[2]
…days which our ancestors called their ‘Month’s Mind’, as being the special days whereon their souls (after death) were had in special remembrance – hence the expression of ‘having a Month’s Mind’, to imply a longing desire.
According to Philip R Buttall, this piece "encapsulates the quite individual harmonic language of the composer, bitter-sweet with its fair share of dissonance, but never added for mere effect alone".[3]
