September has arrived, and with it, Autumn.

Edward Johnson writes… It’s the 1st of the month, so time for some September music, starting as always with Tchaikovsky. All the pieces in his piano suite “The Seasons” have ‘poetic epigraphs’ and the one for September is titled “The Hunt” … ‘It is time! The horns are sounding! The hunters in their hunting dress are mounted on their horses; in early dawn the borzois are jumping.’

It is played here by Alexander Malofeev …

Here is Morton Gould’s arrangement from his 1951 US Columbia LP, reissued by Pristine Audio …

Georgii Cherkin played the piano part in this live performance with his own orchestral accompaniment conducted by Grigor Palikarov…

Richard Strauss next, with ‘September’ from his ‘Four Last Songs’ sung by Renee Fleming in a 2001 Prom with the Philharmonia conducted by Christoph Eschenbach …

Another piano piece entitled ‘September’ comes from Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s suite “The Year” played by Diana Sahakyan …

Moving to what might be called the popular era, here is a famous old 78 which you’ll never hear on BBC Radio, due their ban on historical and mono recordings, namely Walter Huston singing Kurt Weill’s “September Song”…

David Whitfield was one of the UK’s most successful ballad singers in pre-rock years with songs like ‘Cara Mia’, ‘Answer Me’ and ‘Rags to Riches’ hitting the Number 1 pop charts for weeks on end. However, he was swept away by the likes of Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and so on. ‘My September Love’ also hit the top spot in 1956 and here it is, though again you’ll never hear this on BBC Radio …

We’ll end this selection with Spike Milligan and his own unique version of this song. He goes one better than David Whitfield by serenading his September Love on his instrument, until he is rudely interrupted by an unnamed interloper …