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Dappled Things (2015)

For TTBB choir (and two versions for SSAA choir*)
Text by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Dedicated with admiration and gratitude to Anna M. Thompson, Daniel Stowe
and University of Notre Dame Glee Club
First performance: University of Notre Dame Glee Club, Daniel Stowe conducting: 28 March 2015,
DeBartolo Center, Notre Dame, Indiana.
Duration: 5 minutes

*There are 2 scores available of the SSAA version which are in 2 different keys.
One score for which the altos start on A (a minor third below middle C) and one score for which the altos start on Bb (i.e. a 1/2 step higher.)
Please indicate in your order which version you prefer. If some of your altos have an occasional low E and low F#, composer suggests your use the score for which the altos start on A.

Live performance by the Notre Dame Glee Club conducted by Daniel Stowe

Text

Daniel Stowe, conductor of the North Dame Glee Club

Pied Beauty
Gerard Manley Hopkins

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;
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:
Praise him.

 
PROGRAM NOTE BY PAUL PELLAY

Dappled Things (2015) sets Gerard Manley Hopkins' Pied Beauty, and Thomas' instinctive understanding of the sprung rhythms of Hopkins' poetry led her to fashion a jazz-inflected choral scherzo with the unerringly placed verbal stresses generating a momentum both graceful and unstoppable.

Copyright © Paul Pellay

Selected Reviews

Stuart Sillitoe, MusicWeb International "Dappled Things sets a text by the English poet and Jesuit Gerald Manley Hopkins, this is a strong text that deals with the glory of creation and the Glee Club are more than capable of bringing this wonderful setting to life."

 

Norte Dame Glee Club

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