May 19, 2021

Subscribe to The New Criterion’s podcast series via Apple or Google. 

Jay provides a program of songs and arias about spring: a variety of composers and languages. And performers. Maria Callas and Ella Fitzgerald are among them. This is a wonderful category of music: rhapsodic, hopeful, giddy, appreciative. Spring it up.

Argento, “Spring,” from “Six Elizabethan Songs”
Hahn, “Le printemps
Strauss, “Der Lenz
Wagner, “Du bist der Lenz,” from “Die Walküre”
Rachmaninoff, “Spring Waters
Saint-Säens, “Printemps qui commence,” from “Samson et Dalila”
Hoiby, “Always It’s Spring
Rodgers & Hammerstein, “It Might As Well Be Spring

New to The New Criterion?

Subscribe for one year to receive ten print issues, and gain immediate access to our online archive spanning more than four decades of art and cultural criticism.