Spring Festival Suite () is a Chinese orchestral work composed by Li Huanzhi (李焕之) between 1955 and 1956, depicting the scene when folks in

Shanbei Northern Shaanxi or Shaanbei () is the portion of China's Shaanxi province north of the Huanglong Mountain and the Meridian Ridge (the so-called "Guanzhong north mountains"), and is both a geographic as well as a cultural area. It makes up the so ...

region were celebrating the

Chinese New Year Chinese New Year, or the Spring Festival (see also #Names, § Names), is a festival that celebrates the beginning of a New Year, new year on the traditional lunisolar calendar, lunisolar Chinese calendar. It is one of the most important holi ...

(Spring Festival). The tune is widely heard primarily in Mainland China, where it appears frequently in school music textbooks, as well as being played on various festive occasions. The most known movement of the suite is the first movement, the overture. It is often played by its own, and is known as the Spring Festival Overture (). In 2007 the overture of the work was selected to be carried and broadcast into space on China's first lunar probe,

Chang'e 1 Chang'e 1 (; ) was an uncrewed Chinese lunar-orbiting spacecraft, part of the first phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. The spacecraft was named after the Chinese Moon goddess, Chang'e. Chang'e 1 was launched on 24 October 2007 a ...

Instrumentation

The suite calls for

piccolo The piccolo ( ; ) is a smaller version of the western concert flute and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. Sometimes referred to as a "baby flute" or piccolo flute, the modern piccolo has the same type of fingerings as the ...

, two

flutes The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

, two

oboes The oboe ( ) is a type of double-reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common type of oboe, the soprano oboe pitched in C, ...

cor anglais The cor anglais (, or original ; plural: ''cors anglais''), or English horn (mainly North America), is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family. It is approximately one and a half times the length of an oboe, making it essentially ...

, two

clarinets The clarinet is a single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches. The clarinet family is the largest woodwin ...

in B-flat, two

bassoons The bassoon is a musical instrument in the woodwind family, which plays in the tenor and bass ranges. It is composed of six pieces, and is usually made of wood. It is known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, versatility, and virtuosity ...

, four

horns Horns or The Horns may refer to: * Plural of Horn (anatomy) * Plural of Horn (instrument), a group of musical instruments all with a horn-shaped bells * The Horns (Colorado), a summit on Cheyenne Mountain * Horns (novel), ''Horns'' (novel), a dar ...

in F, two

trumpets The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard B o ...

in B-flat, three

trombones The trombone (, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's lips vibrate inside a mouthpiece, causing the air column inside the instrument to ...

tuba The tuba (; ) is the largest and lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece (brass), mouthpiece. It first appeared in th ...

, three

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion instrument, percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a Membranophone, membrane called a drumhead, ...

cymbals A cymbal is a common percussion instrument. Often used in pairs, cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys. The majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sou ...

triangle A triangle is a polygon with three corners and three sides, one of the basic shapes in geometry. The corners, also called ''vertices'', are zero-dimensional points while the sides connecting them, also called ''edges'', are one-dimension ...

, various Chinese percussion instruments,

celeste Celeste may refer to: Geography * Mount Celeste, unofficial name of a mountain on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada * Celeste, Texas, a rural city in North Texas ** Celeste High School, public high school located in the city of Celes ...

harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orchestras or ...

, first and second

violins The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino pic ...

violas The viola ( , () ) is a string instrument of the violin family, and is usually bowed when played. Violas are slightly larger than violins, and have a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the ...

, celli, and

double basses The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched chordophone in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions such as the octobass). It has ...

Structure

The suite is in four movements, marked as follows: # “Overture – ''Da Yang Ge'' ()”, Allegro con fuoco – Moderato grazioso – Allegro # Andante cantabile # Rondo # Moderato The first movement overture -- Yangko, is a complex trilogy. The allegro is composed of two folk suona tunes in northern Shaanxi. The middle part is the medium plate, Shanbei Yangko tone, by the oboe and cello successively played melody; Finally, the main music is replayed in full by the trumpet lead band. The second movement of the love song is a cantabile andante. It begins with an English wind lead. Then came the theme of love song in Northern Shaanxi. After repeating the love song for six times, it gradually returns to the theme of the signature mode answered by the violin and cello, and finally reproduces the lead tone through the connecting sentence. The third movement disc song is a roundabout type waltz. It is composed of a theme symbolizing the happy gathering of the people in the festival and two subtopics as the first and second part of the contrast. The tones are all from the Yangko key material of leading Shanbei singing. The fourth movement is a three-part lantern club, medium plate, and the main music is derived from the folk conformation music of northern Shaanxi Suona (" Dabai Team "). The middle part of the Yangko tune "Picking pumpkins", "land boat" overlapping tones appear, the performance of Yangko in the small scene. The end part reproduces the main music, adding the warm Yangko gongs and drums rhythm to end the whole piece. The first movement was often performed later under the title of the Spring Festival Overture.

References

"Chinese Music to be played in outer space" (Listen), China.org.cn
(

Numerical notation Numerical may refer to: * Number * Numerical digit * Numerical analysis Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation (as opposed to symbolic computation, symbolic manipulations) for the problems of mathematical ...

) published by

People's Education Press The People's Education Press (PEP; ) is the oldest publishing house of the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China. It was founded on December 1, 1950, and the name was inscribed by Mao Zedong in his own handwriting. The main task ...

External links

YouTube - Spring Festival Overture
performed at Goldener Saal,

Musikverein The ( or ; ), commonly shortened to , is a concert hall in Vienna, Austria, which is located in the Innere Stadt district. The building opened in 1870 and is the home of the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra. The acoustics of the building's 'Grea ...

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

The White-Haired Girl (Suite) / Spring Festival Overture by Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Amazon.com MP3 Downloads
Chinese classical music Holiday songs Chinese New Year 1950s songs {{China-music-stub