The Haar’s epic version of this much beloved song is as unique as you would expect. From Murray Grainger’s yearning and evocative opening, through the sparse verse with Molly Donnery’s gorgeous vocals and the throbbing questioning rhythms of Cormac Byrne’s bodhrán, it leads inexorably to the almost symphonic instrumental rhapsody leading from Adam Summerhayes’s improvised transformation of the melody. 

The final verse brings even more poignancy, with new words by Adam hauntingly and devastatingly sung by Molly. As the music fades, the solo fiddle brings the track to its heartbreaking conclusion.

Black Is The Colour (Trad.arr)

Text by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

You can download sheet music for free from http://tiny.cc/o51qkx

My music is community funded, not commercially funded. Pleased pledge at http://patreon.com/artsyhonker if you can, and please don't if you can't. Thanks so much!

Demo recording by Matthew Curtis at http://www.choraltracks.com


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.

Pied Beauty - Kathryn Rose

The start of this song came to me in a dream. If we were in charge of the world for just a few hours, or a day, we’d take everything we could and enjoy it and never think about the consequences. If we were in charge for a year, maybe we’d plan ahead a bit. But if we were in charge for ever and going to live for ever, we would do things very differently – plan to make things sustainable, hopefully make the world a better place, maybe rule benevolently.

At the moment nobody is planning for a hundred years into the future, or even twenty years. And it shows. But the message of this song is that we can change things and start planning ahead.

https://choirsforclimate.com/2023/07/22/if-the-world-were-ours/

Oh if the world were ours for just one day,
a treasure briefly lent, then snatched away,
we’d live like kings, take what we could,
dress up in gold, eat all the food we love;
We’d live without a care
if we knew it would be gone
the next day, the next day…

Oh if the world were ours for one whole year,
a voyage round the sun and back to here,
where would we go? Where would we live?
What would we take? What would we leave behind?
And would the answers change
if we knew it would be ours
the next year, the next year?

Oh if the world were ours for evermore,
we’d have to fix mistakes we’d made before;
What would we reap? What would we sow?
What would we stop? What would we now begin?
What would be different now
if we had to plan ahead
for longer, for longer?

Today the world is ours from pole to pole,
the sun and wind and sea, the oil and coal;
What should we save? What should we end?
What can we make? How can we mend the past?
And will we change our ways
when we see the world is ours
to care for, to care for?

If The World Were Ours - TBarB demo

Spanning the Years

Lovely on the Water

02 King

Paths That Wind

The Dream

DSharp is back at it again with another lit cover of Chris Brown and Drake's "No Guidance".

Pied Beauty - Kathryn Rose

artsyhonker

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