A choral setting of Gerard Manley Hopkins' 'Binsey Poplars', performed by Utrecht-based choir Kamerkoor JIP in Pieterskerk, Utrecht, June 2022. The poem describes Manley Hopkins' sadness at the felling of his favourite trees - an apt sentiment for this age of ecocide.

My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
All felled, felled, are all felled;
    Of a fresh and following folded rank
            Not spared, not one
            That dandled a sandalled
            Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank.
 
O if we but knew what we do
            When we delve or hew—
    Hack and rack the growing green!
            Since country is so tender
    To touch, her being so slender,
    That, like this sleek and seeing ball
    But a prick will make no eye at all,
            Where we, even where we mean
            To mend her we end her,
            When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
    Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
            Strokes of havoc unselve
            The sweet especial scene,
            Rural scene, a rural scene,
            Sweet especial rural scene. 

Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1879

Binsey Poplars

Predator Fish was commissioned by The Hermes Experiment (ensemble of harp, clarinet, soprano and double bass), and is partly inspired by the photograph above by Thurstan Redding. The words are a mishmash of various love-themed poems by the contemporary Buddhist poet Yogaratna. The 'predator fish' in question are rival lovers/suitors, although I did not realise this at time of composition! 'Vita' refers to Vita Sackville-West(one of Yogaratna's poems is from the standpoint of Virginia Woolf.)If the piece expresses or describes anything, it would be the simultaneous depth and fragility of love.

The piece was performed at the Crypt on the Green, London on June 20th 2015 and will be performed again by The Hermes Experiment as part of the PLG Young Artists Spring Series on April 19th 2016. Words below:

The pleasure of hearing myself fade away
Thoughts become shadows, and the wind through tussock grass
But with you, Vita, I am unsure, like a child
I feel a tiny distant weeping,
Wavering like a seedling grows

Utter giving, no resisting

Dance-heart machinery locomotive
Hungry child basis, staring through the city
Bass note thrown
Bent peevishly, starts mouthing
Shadows sway and nod their heads in time
While love is warm in our hearts
The predator fish circle us

Ah…


'Predator Fish' for Hermes Experiment (clarinet, double bass, soprano, harp)

The Scaffold (Derry Gaol) - Edward McDonagh

http://www.katehoneymusic.co.uk
Kate Honey (1991) is a British composer. Her work has been performed in the Southbank Centre, St Johns Smith Square, the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ, the National Concert Hall of Ireland. She is the recipient of the Arthur Bliss Prize for Composition 2013. 

As a composer Kate frequently engages with environmental issues. Her recent pieces Shell Symphony and Anthropocene take the fossil fuel industry as inspiration. Shell Symphony was performed outside the Amsterdam Concertgebouw in Oct 2017 to call on the institution to cut its ties with Shell.
www.katehoneymusic.co.uk

Binsey Poplars

Kate Honey Music

Related tracks