Selected works / Choral
Plentyn y Ddaear
- Forces
- SSAATTBB, unaccompanied
- Duration
- c. 5′
- Year
- 2026
- Language
- Welsh
- Text
- Waldo Williams
- Suited to
- Concert
- Dedication
- er cof fy nhad
- Competition performance
- Octave Cymru, conducted by Caleb Mock, Maes yr Eisteddfod Genedlaethol, Llantwd, 8 August 2026
- World premiere
- National Youth Choir of Wales, conducted by Tim Rhys-Evans, St Asaph Cathedral, 19 August 2026
- Availability
- Available from the composer
To be published by Tŷ Cerdd.
Setting one of Waldo Williams’ best-known pacifist poems, Plentyn y Ddaear is a work of two parts.
In the first, the peaceful strength of the eponymous ‘plentyn y ddaear’ (child of the earth) is sung as a slow, resistant fanfare over a noisy march that sets the first stanza as a backdrop of war-mongering.
In the second, the deeply felt final stanza expressing hope for the future and frustration at the present is set to gentler musical material, allowing the choir to open out and breathe.
Written for Medal y Cyfansoddwr at the National Eisteddfod in 2026, a competition that was also a development pathway: three composers, chosen from thirty entries, set the same two poems under the mentorship of Nathan James Dearden. The eisteddfod was Eisteddfod y Garreg Las, held in Pembrokeshire — the poet’s county, and the composer’s. Its companion setting is Y Ci Coch.
Perusal and performing copies are available directly from Andrew by contacting him at email@andrewcusworth.com.
If you are performing this work, do let Andrew know so it can be added to the map.