Dance and Sing – Carol Barnett

Composer: Carol Barnett

Text by: John Gay (1685-1732)

Instrumentation: SATB, piano

Duration: Approx. 3 minutes

Date Written:  1991

Composer’s note: 

Commissioned in 1991 in honor of the Macalester College Festival Chorale’s twentieth anniversary, Dance and Sing is a lively, rhythmically compelling modern madrigal celebrating the energy of youth while gently underscoring its ephemeral nature. 

– Carol Barnett

Text:

Youth’s the season made for joys,
Love is then our duty;
She alone who that employs,
Well deserves her beauty.
Let’s be gay,
While we may,
Beauty’s a flower despised in decay.
Youth’s the season made for joys,
Love is then our duty.

Let us drink and sport today,
Ours is not tomorrow.
Love with youth flies swift away,
Age is nought but sorrow.
Dance and sing,
Time’s on the wing,
Life never know the return of spring.
Let us drink and sport today,
Ours is not tomorrow.

    John Gay (1685-1732)