Description
Also known as ‘The Fatal Snow Storm’, this tragic folksong tells the familiar tale of a young woman who has been seduced, made pregnant, and then abandoned by a man, before being cast out in disgrace by her own family. The same story is told in countless traditional songs, and to sing it today is a reminder that the fight for gender equality continues, with women all over the world still facing persecution and living without basic rights and freedoms that many of us take for granted.
This simple 4-part setting is designed to be learnt easily by ear, although it is also perfectly suitable for score-reading choirs. It begins in unison, with new layers of harmony gradually added, before a full SATB texture arrives in the second verse. The harmonies are intuitive adaptations of the main melody, which means that the most effective (and fun!) aural learning sequence begins with everybody learning a whole verse in unison, before the full harmonies are taught. The main melody is not consistently sung by one part, but distributed between all 4.
The Crucial Info
Forces: SATB
Duration: c. 2’30”
Text: Traditional
Date of composition: 2021
Premiere: Yet to happen in the non-digital realm!
Listen
This is a home-recorded learning resource, created for Zoom choirs during the pandemic, sung by Stef Conner and Graham Bier:
Perusal Score
Text
‘Twas in the month of January, the hills all clad with snow,
And over hills and valleys I carelessly did go.
‘Twas there I spied a fair pretty maid with a salt tear in her eye,
She had a baby in her arms, and bitter she did cry.
“O cruel was my father who barred the door to me,
And cruel was my mother this dreadful crime to see,
And cruel was my own true love to change his mind for gold,
And cruel was the bitter wind that pierced my heart with cold.”
“For the taller that the palm tree grows the sweeter is the bark,
And the fairer that a young man speaks, the falser is his heart,
He will kiss you and embrace you ’til he thinks he has you won,
Then he’ll go away and leave you all for some other one.”
So come you fair and tender maids a warning take by me,
And never try to build your nest on top of a high tree,
For the leaves they will all wither and the branches will decay,
And the beauties of a false young man will all soon fade away.
Please contact Stef for more information and/or a license to perform this piece.