- Instruments: a cappella
- Duration: 4:30 minutes
- Difficulty: Moderate
- Availability: By request – currently being reviewed.
- Pied Beauty mp3 sample (2010 version)
Pied Beauty: Lyrics
Based on poem by 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 trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spáre, strange;
Whatever is fickle, frecklèd (who knows how?)
With swíft, slów; sweet, sóur; adázzle, dím;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is pást change:
Práise hím.
General information
Pied Beauty was submitted to the ROCCC Composition Competition in Melbourne, Australia in early 2010. In a field of over a score of international entries it won third prize, and was performed as part of the concert given in Kaleide Theatre, Melbourne.
Regardless, I am unhappy with the final result, and am currently in the process of reworking parts of the piece before a general release. In the meanwhile, if you are keen to perform the piece, please contact me and I’ll forward copies of the score as it currently stands, but for present I consider the piece to be under review.
