In this text, an excerpt from As You Like It, “Heigh ho, sing heigh ho!” is a celebration with an undercurrent of bitterness. When ingratitude and feigned friendship stings more than the winter wind, you need music that you can still dance to without ignoring the truth at the heart of the matter! It’s a sort of “haters gonna hate, I’m just gonna shake it off” anthem, except unlike Taylor Swift’s pop song, this is a modern take on a medieval folk dance. The tune feels to me like something that could have been sung in Shakespeare’s time to celebrate the winter solstice, while the wind-like aleotoric sections bookend it, as though blowing away the old year and hastening in the new one.
Voicing:
SSA and hand percussion
Duration:
under 3 minutes
Other notes:
Text by William Shakespeare
Text:
Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude;
