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This is a Sokyoku piece in the Meiji Shinkyoku style from the Ikuta Ryű school . This piece was composed for koto by Yoshizawa Kengyo II .

History (from Tsuge Gen'ichi)
Haru no kyoku ('Ode to Spring') is one of a set of pieces originally composed for voice and koto called Kokin no kumi which consists of five pieces: four odes to the seasons, and Chidori no kyoku ('Song of Plovers'). All the six waka poems sung in this piece are taken from the Books One and Two (Songs of Spring) of the Kokin waka shu.

The long instrumental interlude tegoto, inserted between the fourth and fifth waka, was not originally composed by Yoshizawa, but added later by Matsuzaka Shun'ei (1854-1920) of Kyoto.

Poem (translated by Tsuge Gen'ichi)
If the bush warbler
Did not sing
From the valleys,
Who would know
The coming of spring?

Though deep in the mountains
Snow still covers the pines,
In the capital
People gather young shoots
From the fields!

If the cherry blossom were not known
To our world,
Perhaps our hearts would be
Peaceful at spring time.

On horseback
We go to the old capital
At Nara;
See how the blossoms are scattered
Whiter and deeper than snow!

Will only passing strangers
Glance back and see
The wisteria in bloom,
Billowing in waves
On my cottage?

Sing, warbler, sing!
Never cease your song!
For spring
Comes only
Once a year.

Haru no Kyoku appears on the following albums:

Album	Shakuhachi	Koto	Shamisen
Fascination of the Koto 4  (Listen)		Yonekawa Toshiko
Composed by Yosizawa kengyo II (1801/08-1872). He composed numerous koto pieces using the tanka poems included in the Kokin waka syuu. This particular piece represents the progression from early spring to the end of spring. The composer invented the tuning specific to these pieces by adding semi-tone pregressions to an anhemitonic (without any half tone steps) tuning of the gagaku koto.
Fujii Kunie Sokyoku Jiuta No Sekai 5  (Listen)
Fukami Satomi - Sokyoku Jiuta Shu - 2		Fukami Satomi
Japanese Music for Koto and Shakuhachi - 2  (Listen)		Nakamura Soyo
Koto Music of Japan, The  (Listen)	Kikusui Kofu	Hagiwara Seikin
Music of Spring (Haru-no-kyoku) composed by Yoshizawa Kengyo is one of the important works of the pseudo-classical movement which took place in the nineteenth century. This movement aimed to overcome the modern sentimentality and the concurrent subordination of koto music to shamisen music. The music of the four seasons, including Haru-no-kyoku, are the culmination of this movement.
Koto no Miryoku - Disk 2  (Listen)
Masterpieces of the Koto  (Listen)		Sawai Tadao
Miyagi Michio - Best One
Sokyoku Jiuta Taikei 38  (Listen)		Yuize Shin'ichi