About this episode
The episode features musical recordings inspired by the beauty of spring, accompanied by a reflection on Gerard Manley Hopkins' poetry.
In these mellifluous recordings of two very brief piece I wrote for the clarinet, Mike Halliday captures for us something of the sense of the burgeoning spring. Few if any have surpassed Gerard Manley Hopkins’ depiction of the bursting vibrancy and vitality of nature's rejuvenation in spring: Nothing is so beautiful as Spring – When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing; The glassy pear tree leaves and blooms, they brush The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling. What is all this juice and all this joy? A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy, Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning, Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy, Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning. Hopkins crowds his sonnet with such sensory detail that we are transported and our poetic vision magnified to the point where we can see in the diminutive speckled blue eggs of the thrush, nesting low in…
Topics covered
- spring
- nature
- poetry
- clarinet
Keywords
- Gerard Manley Hopkins
- vibrancy
- Eden
- clarinet music
Mentioned in this episode
Places: Eden
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