We live in a very silly world. We’ve watched Republican primary candidates quote from the Pokémon movie, a former Poet Laureate get beaten by police while protesting the excesses of our greediest fat cats, and an eleven year old get touted as Opera’s Next Big Star (before damaging her vocal cords, of course). Reality TV shows now feature  psychological disorders (“Hoarders”) and taxidermists (I can’t make this up – it’s called “American Stuffers”), and even the History Channel has succumbed to airing programs about ancient aliens. In a world like this, sometimes it seems that the only thing anyone can do is laugh. And — contrary to conventional wisdom — even the greatest composers of the most breathtaking, serious works could not suppress their musical giggles.

Perhaps the most famous musical punch line comes from Joseph Haydn, father of the symphony as we know it. There is a famous story that recounts the German Haydn’s frustration at his British audiences’ tendencies to fall asleep during the slow movements of his symphonies. As a bit of revenge, Haydn wrote the second movement of his Symphony no. 94 with the express design to lull the audience off before awakening them with a crash. This is Janos Ferencsik and the Hungarian State Orchestra playing the ‘Surprise’ movement, though if you have the chance to listen to Marc Minkowski’s 2010 recording, do so immediately. He adds several surprises that add to the joyful, slightly devilish mood that Haydn so perfectly created.

The ‘Surprise’ Symphony proved to be such a hit that Haydn was able to make another joke out of it, this time in his oratorio The Seasons. Right at the beginning of the piece, a countryman is heard singing along to the Surprise Symphony’s melody — quite a bit of mileage for a piece designed as a prank.

Composers did not limit their musical tittering to audiences, of course: the nineteenth-century master Claude Debussy, with demented glee, took a bit of a pot-shot at Richard Wagner in his piano piece “Golliwog’s Cakewalk.” Wagner, whatever else he may have been, was a musical genius, and the harmonies he used in his compositions were absolutely groundbreaking. However, he also had a rather high view of his own importance in the grand scheme of things, and Debussy couldn’t resist putting in a small joke at the composer’s expense. At 1:10 in this video (performed by Scott Price), the theme from the opening of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde can be heard, followed by what can only be described as a piano chuckling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QMLA5o0Az8

My favorite, however, is a piece that does not use laughter to poke fun at anything; instead, the laughter is a reaction to being filled with joy. George Frideric Handel, a composer I truly believe has no equal when it comes to writing joyful music, wrote an English-language oratorio, L’Allegro, il penseroso e il moderato in 1740. In the air with chorus “Haste, thee nymph,” both the soloist and chorus are overcome with laughter. The result is what may be the most delightful piece of music I have ever heard (performed by John Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloists):

In a world where things seem to be getting more and more ridiculous by the day, sometimes it’s best to just sit back and laugh at everything. From practical jokes to jabs in the side to pure, unbridled glee, laughter has been central to music for hundreds of years, and I sincerely hope that is not forgotten in the years to come.

As is evidenced above, seasonal words sometimes sneak into the titles of certain works, but those aren’t the only works I connect with particular seasons. Mahler’s Fourth Symphony doesn’t have a seasonal subtitle or a nickname, but for me it’s definitely summer music, the slow movement passing like high clouds against a bright blue sky as you gaze at them from a hammock. Ravel’s Dapnhis and Chloe ballet is summer muic for me as well, conjuring up sunlit Greek Isles and brilliant white-sand beaches. On the other hand, Sibelius’s seven symphonies are mostly winter fare for me: I’m sure Finland (the composer’s homeland) has perfectly beautiful summers, but for me much of his music has a bracing, wintry quality that’s both awesome and imposing.

Spring is a rich time for musical associations. In churches and concert halls around the world throngs are performing and listening to Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s epic Passions in celebration of Easter season. But there’s also plenty of other, “non-religious” music that conjures up spring, both as natural phenomenon and as a symbol of hope and renewed vitality. I haven’t done a count, but it seems like spring finds its way into more titles of works than any of the other seasons: Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring; Beethoven’s Spring sonata for violin and piano; Schumann’s Spring Symphony (his first); Copland’s Appalachian Spring; Britten’s Spring Symphony; Richard Strauss’s Voices of Spring; and Delius’s On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring; the “Spring” concerto from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, to name but a few examples that come to mind. But there are also other works without the seasonal word in their titles that seem to have Spring written all over them, like Mahler’s First Symphony.

So as winter finally loosens its grip in the Northern Hemisphere and you get ready for your own springtime rituals – from taking out that baseball mitt or tennis racquet to planting your garden – here’s a list of five of my favorite works for spring listening.

1. Igor Stravinsky: Rite of Spring. So you’ve felt cooped up all winter and really want to let loose? Start with Stravinsky’s most famous (and riot-inducing) ballet. Stravinsky used the phrase “Pictures from Pagan Russia” in a subtitle, a reference to the work’s story line, which ends in nothing less than human sacrifice (oh, that!). In conductor Valery Gergiev’s version with the Kirov Orchestra you can feel previously sleeping life bursting through the long-frozen Russian earth with savage force.  Buy on iTunes

Here’s a video clip of Mo. Gergiev conducting the first part of the Rite of Spring:

2. Aaron Copland: Appalachian Spring. Compared to Stravinsky’s ballet, Copland’s spring celebration is a much more civilized affair, as 19^th century pioneers celebrate the raising of a new farmhouse. But the innocence and joy of the new season light up every bar of the work, and the famous hymn-like melody in the finale, from the Shaker tune “Tis a Gift to Be Simple,” leaves a lump in your throat as it builds to a noble climax. Bernstein’s recording with the Los Angeles Philharmonic is as authentic as it gets. Buy on iTunes

3. Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 1. The quiet, shimmering strings that open this symphony conjure up the awakening of spring like no other work. Repeated cuckoo calls and brass fanfare from afar confirm that the new season is here to stay, beginning a romantic adventure that includes young love, a broken heart and, in the final movement, a triumph of renewed hope. There are many wonderful recorded performances of this symphony to choose from. Leonard Bernstein recorded it twice, in the 1960’s with the New York Philharmonic, and three decades later with Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw. Both are classics.

Buy Bernstein’s recording with the New York Phil on iTunes
Buy Bernstein’s recording with the Royal Concertgebouw on iTunes

4. Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 2, Resurrection. Despite the subtitle, this work features song lyrics that are taken from romantic poetry and not the New Testament of the Bible. In ways, the symphony continues the epic story that began with Mahler’s previous symphony. It’s a huge, sprawling work that is by turns terrifying and awe-inspiring as it charts the journey of the human soul from death to its reunion with the eternal spirit. If you’ve had a particularly rough winter, this work will lift your spirits like few others. Simon Rattle’s performance with the City of Birmingham Orchestra won a Gramophone Award and is justifiably famous.  Buy on iTunes

5. Schumann: Symphony No. 1, Spring. Bright brass fanfares and boisterous timpani strokes give the first movement a jolt of joyous energy that lights up the whole symphony. From the blazing opening to the giddy spirits in the finale, Leonard Bernstein and the Vienna Philharmonic have plenty of fun and make the music dazzle. Buy on iTunes