The month of May in music

Thursday, May 21, 2026

“In the beautiful month of May” – thus goes the first line of a well-known poem by Heinrich Heine, which Robert Schumann set to music to open his song cycle “Dichterliebe.” This Lied is arguably one of the best known of its kind and would certainly rank among the most popular, if someone were to compile a “top ten” list of musical references to the month of May.

But the RISM database has much more to offer in connection with the month of May. A search for compositions related to this topic can start right from the header of our homepage, for example, by entering the term “May” in any of the various languages represented in RISM (“Mai,” “Maj,” “Maggio,” etc.). By using the wildcard character * at the end, the search can also be expanded to include derivatives of this word, such as the old English “maying” (as in Thomas Morley’s famous madrigal “Now is the month of maying”), or compound words such as the German “Mainacht” (the title of a poem by L. C. H. Hölty, set to music by Johannes Brahms, among others). Depending on which button you click after entering the search terms on our website, the list of results is displayed either in RISM Online or in the RISM Catalog, each of which offers a set of further options.

In both interfaces, you can refine the list of hits through filtering. In the RISM Catalog you find various suggestions on the left-hand side, such as “Genre” (e.g., Lieder or arias), as well as composer, source type, scoring or publisher. In addition, RISM Online also offers the option to select the language of the text or specify the date of origin, among others. If you already have a more concrete idea of the composition you are looking for, you can also use the “Advanced Search” of the RISM Catalog, which offers a variety of search fields (title, composer, genre, music incipit, liturgical festival, etc.). In RISM Online you have the option to create a customized query, through which you can also combine different categories or multiple languages and, for instance, search among the titles for the German, English, and Italian equivalents – “Mai”, “May”, and “Maggio” – simultaneously.

Given that certain terms have a variety of meanings in different languages, your hit list may include titles that have no relevant connection to the month of May. For example, using the search term “maj” inevitably yields titles where “Maj” is simply an abbreviation for the French key indication “Majeur,” while “may” is also an English modal verb, and the spelling “mai” frequently appears as an Italian negation implying “never.” Thus, when reviewing the search results, one needs a bit of springtime energy and should be open to unexpected discoveries – such as the chanson “La rousé du moys de may” by the Flemish composer Johannes de Crespel (RISM Online | RISM Catalog).

Image: Johannes de Crespel, La rousé du moys de may, in: Recueil des fleurs produictes de la divine Musicque a trois parties, par Clemens Non Papa, Thomas Cricquillon, et aultres excellens Musiciens. Tiers Livre (Löwen 1569), fol. xxiii; provided by Österreichische Nationalbibliothek

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