Wong Jum-sum loved music of all kinds, and had a particularly deep-seated passion for Western classical music.

In the 1950s, both Wong and classical music were finding their feet in Hong Kong society. The best they could do was to openly embrace the unknown.

To embrace the unknown, one needs support from all directions.

Thanks to Radio Hong Kong, Wong was able to listen to enticing music all day everyday, in that process learning to appreciate simultaneously the distinctive worlds of Shankar and Schubert.

Thanks to Leung Yat-chiu, he knew classical music held no special mystical aura. Whatever sounded good was good music.

Thanks to Wong Jum-sum himself, he learnt to read and absorb the principles and practices of making music, no matter whether they came from Bach or Beethoven.

Thanks to Hong Kong of the 1950s, he encountered a succession of visiting maestros, extending immensely his ideas about music and life.

Haydn: The Seasons (Excerpt) (1959)

In 1957 the Sino-British Orchestra officially changed its name to The Hong Kong Philharmonic and held a concert at Loke Yew Hall at the University of Hong Kong on 31st October. The climax of the evening arrived when the orchestra, together with The Hong Kong Oratorio Society, played excerpts from Haydn’s Oratorio The Seasons.

We have excerpted here the chorus ‘Come, Gentle Spring’, in a famous 1956-recorded version with Thomas Beecham conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Composer: Joseph Haydn
Lyricist: Gottfried van Swieten
Performers: Thomas Beecham conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Come, gentle Spring, ethereal mildness come!
Out of her wintry grave bid drowsy nature rise.
At last the pleasing Spring is near; the softening air is full of balm.
A boundless song bursts from the groves.
As yet the year is unconfirmed, and Winter oft at eve resumes the breeze,
and bids his driving sleets deform the day and chill the morn.
Come, gentle Spring, ethereal mildness come!
and smiling on our plains descend, while music wakes around.