Hey Ho, the Wind and the Rain!
Song from the incidental music for Shakespeare's Twelfth Night
Instrumentation
Tenor, harpsichord (or piano)Incidental theater music from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night: excerpt from Feste’s Song (“Hey, Ho, the Wind and the Rain”). John Greenleaf, director
Program Note
Who doesn’t like to set a bit of Shakespeare? This short song—Feste’s Hey, Ho, the Wind and the Rain—is an excerpt from the incidental music I wrote for the 2004/5 Cincinnati Playhouse in the Parks/NEA Shakespeare in American Communities production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Director John Greenleaf requested that the music be based on Bach’s Goldberg Variations, you can hear a short quotation before the last stanza near the end of the song, which made for a fun assignment. The tour ran from January through February 2005 and visiting 25 schools and was seen by over 9,000 students in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and West Virginia. I slightly adapted it to make it more of a concert piece.