A Celebration of Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins was one of the most musical of poets. Not only was he an avid musician per se, who theorised about and composed music himself. But his poetry is characterised by its highly complex, evocative sounds, and by its relation of form to meaning, sound to sense. It is therefore unsurprising that later composers have been drawn to set his exotic poetry to music, and the Elysian Singers will be presenting some of the most notable examples from the 20th and 21st centuries. The very title of Benjamin Britten’s early collection ‘A.M.D.G.’ is a motto of the Jesuit order, of which Hopkins was a member: and the music is as rich as the poetry it inspired. We include settings by as wide a selection of composers as Samuel Barber, Alan Bullard, Bob Chilcott and Ian Stephens. The première of a new work by David Lancaster featuring Hopkins’ tribute to his own favourite composer, Henry Purcell, allows us to dip back into the earlier composer’s wonderful output. And there is also space to include the very different poetry of E.H. Visiak in quirky settings by David Power.