Fantasy on My White Horse

Description

This Fantasy on a Chilean Folk Song, “Mi Caballo Blanco,” provides an excellent vehicle for crossover studies in geography, language, and social studies. All of Gene’s works are fantastically written, and this one is no exception.

Program Notes

“My White Horse, Mi Caballo Blanco”, is a well-known folk song from Chile that has been recorded by many folk singers, both Latino and English. The first stanza lyrics are below.
The setting provides an excellent vehicle to introduce and program multicultural music and a tie to geography, language, and social studies units.

After a brief introduction, there are three settings of the melody. The tune has four distinct and contrasting phrases. As is expected, Percussion adds much to the character of the work, but care must be taken to always play “within” the ensemble.

Es mi caballo blanco, como un amanecer
Siempre juntitos vamos, es mi amigo más fiel.
Mi caballo, mi caballo, galopando va,
Mi caballo, mi caballo, se va y se va.
En alas de una dicha mi caballo corrió
Y en brazos de una pena también él me llevó.
It’s my white horse, like a sunrise.
Always together we go, he’s my friend most faithful.
My horse, my horse, galloping goes.
My horse, my horse, he goes and he goes.