Pieces of Spring No. 7

Welcome May, and Classical Minnesota Public Radio's Pieces of Spring.

Every day, we'll play a springtime classic. Visit our online playlist to find each day's spring piece or, in the Twin Cities, listen to 99.5 every morning at 8. Enter the correct title here, and you have another chance to win fresh flowers delivered to your door for a year! Check back here every day to see if you got it right.

Yesterday's piece was the chorus "Come, Dear Spring," from Haydn's oratorio "The Seasons."

"The Seasons" was commissioned by a group of Viennese nobles who subsidized large-scale choral works, led by librarian Baron von Swieten. Von Swieten provided Haydn with the libretto for "The Seasons," a heavily-edited, German translation of an epic poem by English poet James Thomson. Haydn didn't like the libretto, with its portrayal of peasants (instead of angels, as in his other great oratorio "The Creation"), but the audience at premiere of "The Seasons" was quite taken with the piece.

Come, dear spring! Come, gift from heaven!

From its sleep of death, awaken nature!

It approaches, fair spring, we feel its

soft breath even now. Soon everything

will live again.

Don't rejoice prematurely. Often,

veiled in mist, winter may creep back

and spread on blossoms and seeds its

numbing poison.

Come, fair spring, come gift from

heaven! Sink down upon our

meadows! O come and delay no longer.