Spring Breeze (望春風)

(This post is part of a series in conjunction with Chinese New Year 2017)

Spring Breeze (望春風)

Popular Taiwanese Hokkien Song.
Also known as Spring Wind.
Original Chinese title translates to "Longing for the Spring Breeze".

Released by Columbia records in 1933.
Melody is purely pentatonic
but melodic trajectory provides
many opportunities for creative reharmonization.

Wikipedia entry here.

Stephen Hough - Piano (2008)
Piano paraphrase by Hough himself.
Very tastefully arranged.
Exploits pentatonic melody to create some cleverly-structured canons.
Nice harmonic structure and voicing.
Some interesting reharmonization.

Reminiscent of MacDowell's Woodland Sketches.

 Kaohsiung Chamber Choir (2012)

Well-balanced choral arrangement and performance.

Unobtrusive piano accompaniment

with some pleasant reharmonization surprises.

Kuan-Fu Chen & Tsu-Hsin Pan - Violin and Piano (2012)
Beautiful arrangement for solo violin and piano.
Essential elements unadulterated but tastefully blended with discreet ornamentation.

 

Kenny G - Saxophone (2008)

Good combination of a clear saxophone melody line,

slow harp accompaniment and quiet orchestral backing.

 

Lang Lang - Piano (2008)
Elegant piano paraphrase of this Oriental favourite.
Reminiscent of Chopin's Aeolian Harp Etude and Saint-Saens' Le Cygne.

David Tao - Acappella  (1997)
Brilliant acappella arrangement.
Lots of clever reharmonization.
First appeared in David Tao's eponymous album in 1997.
Sung in Hokkien and then in Mandarin.











David Tao - Acappella
User-made video with helpful English translation of lyrics.