A Lover's Concerto

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"A Lover's Concerto"
Single by The Toys
Released	1965
Format	7"
Genre	Pop
Length	2:40
Label	DynoVoice Records
Writer(s)	Sandy Linzer and Denny Randell
Producer(s)	Linzer and Randell
Chart positions
#2 (USA Hot 100)

This article is about the popular song. For the Korean film, see Lovers' Concerto (film).

"A Lover's Concerto" is a pop song written by American songwriters, Sandy Linzer and Denny Randell, and recorded in 1965 by The Toys. Their version of the song was a major hit in both the United States and the UK during 1965.

Critic Dave Thompson wrote, "Few records are this perfect. Riding across one of the most deceptively hook-laden melodies ever conceived ... 'A Lover’s Concerto' marks the apogee of the Girl Group sound."[1] The song also had an unusual structure that blurred the differences between its verses and choruses.

The lyrics begin with:

How gentle is the rain

That falls softly on the meadow,

Birds high up in the trees

Serenade the clouds with their melodies

Linzer and Randell based the melody on the familiar "Minuet in G major" (BWV Anh. 114) from J.S. Bach's Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach. One key difference is that the "Minuet in G major" is written in 3/4 time, whereas "A Lover's Concerto" is arranged in 4/4 time. (Although often attributed to Bach himself, the "Minuet in G major" is now believed to have been written by Christian Petzold. The Notebook, a gift from Bach to his second wife Anna, begins with works by Bach but also included many blank pages, onto which members of the family copied works that they liked to play; the famous minuets in G major and G minor are not in Bach's handwriting.)

In subsequent years, "A Lover's Concerto" has been recorded by numerous other artists, including Sarah Vaughan, The Supremes, Mrs. Miller and Kelly Chen.

[edit] References in other media

In the 1995 film Mr. Holland's Opus, Mr. Holland used "A Lover's Concerto" as an example to help his first group of high school orchestra students gain an appreciation of classical music.