Last night, my dear friend Tinsley Silcox and I were texting about TTBB rep. It reminded me that I actually did write something for TTBB chorus other than the all too ubiquitous Manly Men’s Chorus.
Here is the fabulous Gary Packwood conducting the Louisiana All State Men’s Chorus. This is my setting of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “Pied Beauty”. I have placed images of the poet in the video and the text of the poem below. This piece hasn’t received much attention, but I think it deserves some more performances.
| GLORY be to God for dappled things— | |
| For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; | |
| For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; | |
| Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings; | |
| Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough; | 5 |
| And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim. | |
| All things counter, original, spare, strange; | |
| Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) | |
| With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; | |
| He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: | 10 |
| Praise him. | |
I was in this choir, and have been searching everywhere for a recording of this! I absolutely loved singing this piece 🙂
Thanks so much, Collin! It was written in a few hours of mad inspiration.
Good blog. I have a real soft spot for this Manley Hopkins poem http://caroleschatter.blogspot.co.nz/2011/12/great-poem-by-manley-hopkins.html
Thanks, Carole. I like that one too. Thanks for the link. I know of one setting of that text. I may make my own soon. You may also like this set. http://kurtknecht.blogspot.com/2011/11/gerard-manley-hopkins-song-cycle.html