Spring Festival Overture

Introduction

The opening movement of Li Huanzhi's Spring Festival Suite, completed in 1955.

Spring Festival Overture began as the first movement of Li Huanzhi's Spring Festival Suite, under the title Overture: Big Yangge, and was completed in 1955, though some sources give 1955 to 1956. In 1953 the dancer Dai Ailian invited Li to work with her on a dance piece called Spring Festival, and although the project was never finished it set his ideas in motion. The music opens with the drum and gong rhythms of the Shaanbei yangge, blends local folk songs with northwestern suona tunes, and builds its middle section on the folk song Eryue Lilai Daguo Chun. Cast in a compound ternary form with a reprise, it portrays people in northern Shaanxi celebrating the New Year. The Central Philharmonic premiered the whole suite during the first National Music Week in 1956; the People's Music Publishing House later issued this movement on its own as Spring Festival Overture, and versions for Chinese orchestra soon followed.

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