Spring Break!

Okay, so it's going to snow tonight, but it's still spring break, which led me to think about the concept of spring in music...

In 1725, Antonio Vivaldi published a series of violin concertos (violin solos with orchestral accompaniment) called The Four Seasons, of which "Spring" is very well known. We use a snippet of it in Music Theory class when we practice analyzing the elements of music:

Spring : Allegro - Helene Ador...

Several jazz standards have the title spring: "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most," "Up Jumped Spring," "It Might as Well Be Spring," and my personal favorite, "Joy Spring" by Clifford Brown:

Joy Spring - Max Roach Quintet...

A classic Pat Metheny tune from the 1970s is titled "April Joy."

One of the pieces we played in Disney was Chen Yi's Spring Festival, a combination of traditional Chinese folksong and modern western classical music.

Rite of Spring, Igor Stravinsky's famous "primitivist" ballet about virgin sacrifice in ancient pagan Russia, caused a riot at its premiere in Paris in 1913:

The Rite of Spring (Scenes of ...

In pop music, you can listen to music by Buffalo Springfield and Rick Springfield. Or, you can go straight to The Boss, Bruce Springsteen:

Born To Run - Bruce Springstee...

Happy Spring Break!