The Seventh Night of July

July 7th is a holiday in Japan called Tanabata, on which great festivals are celebrated throughout the country. It goes back to a legend according to which a young man and a young woman separated by the Milky Way are only allowed to see each other on that one night. In The Seventh Night of July Itaru Sakai set this romantic legend to music. The alto saxophone and euphonium solos inserted in the middle movement symbolise the two main themes of the story.