This work was commissioned by DOM in association with Canty who gave the first performance in York Minster on 23rd October 2008.This brief motet for four voices and renaissance bray harp was written in the South of France inFebruary 2007. It is a setting of two Hadiths or sayings attributed to the Prophet Mohammed. The words convey something of the great mystery of the Absolute and the Beautiful One who is immanent and yet hidden. The music shouldbe performed with great purity in a resonant acoustic. If a renaissance bray harp is not available the harp part may be played on a contemporary instrument. I was a Hidden Treasure; And I longed to be known; So Icreated the world.God is a Beautiful Being And He loves Beauty.

Il Est Bel Et Bon (SSAA) English/French-Renaissance French composer Pierre Passereau was a popular creator of chanson rustiques in Paris and at court the early 1500’s. The songs that survive are almost all of a hearty style with plenty of onomatopoeia double entendres puns and occasional indelicacies employing graceful melody polyphony and sometimes chordal passages.Il es bel et bon has retained popularity almost since it was written. There is evidence that this song was sung as far away as Venice in the 1500's. Here composer Helen Cockburn makes the most of the delightful clucking cuckooing passages and the English words have retained most of the original’s consonants to good effect.