August 24, 2013

Two birthdays

At birthday parties in Romania the celebratory song of choice is Multi Ani Traiasca. The melody is identical to the German birthday song Hoch Soll Sie Leben and I suspect it came into use in Romania during the time of the Austro-Hungarian empire. In the US the birthday song is Happy Birthday To You, a copyright-quagmire repurposing of the kindergarden song Good Morning To You. Both birthday songs are 8 bars long and they stack on top of each other quite nicely when offset by one measure. So here's a short polyphonic arrangement of the two songs I wrote for a friend's birthday that will delight all your Romanian/German-American friends.