American composer John Knowles Paine trained in Germany (where Clara Schumann asked the young American to play some of his organ compositions for her) and soon after his return to the US in 1861 began teaching organ performance at Harvard. About ten years after that Paine established the first full music studies program in the US (at Harvard). He also wrote the first American symphony to be published. This was his Symphony No. 2 “In The Spring.” Its 1880 premiere in Boston was met with wild approval, expressed with handkerchief waving, shouts and one critic opening and closing his umbrella from his seat during the ovations. Though Paine did not include programmatic titles to the symphony’s movements, preferring instead to let the music give impressions of what the movements are perhaps about, from his notes we know that the opening of the “In The Spring” symphony begins with the idea of “Departure of Winter.” And at this point I think we’re all ready for that. Celebrate the birthday today (Jan 9, 1839) of John Knowles Paine with his Symphony No. 2 “In The Spring” for our Midday Masterpiece today at 2:00 pm.