Glory Be to God SATB Divisi Choral Score by Paul Spicer, Boosey & Hawkes, 20 Pages, Contemporary Choral Series

This setting of Gerard Manley Hopkinss poem Pied Beauty ('Glory be to God for dappled things') was commissioned by the Rev Jim Bates, Vicar of Kingston, for the service in Kingston Parish Church celebrating the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. The first performance was given by the combined choirs of the Kingston Parish Church and Twickenham Choral Society on the 2nd June 2002.

The Vicar particularly requested the use of Hopkinss famous poem which celebrates all manner of dappled things. It is a difficult poem for the composer (as are many of Hopkinss poems) and a good proportion of the text is reflective or descriptive. The poem winds through a number of examples of dappled things: skies of couple-colour, rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim, fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls and so on winding down to a centrally peaceful section in which Hopkins writes of all things counter, original, spare, strange. However, being a celebratory service, I wanted to bring out as much of that element within the poem as possible and so repeated the first three lines of the poem at the end as a lively dance, finishing with many injunctions to praise him.