May 1956
These songs were composed to form, with Canticle III, the musical elements in a programme of settings of and readings from the verse of Edith Sitwell entitled 'The Heart of the Matter' given at the 1956 Aldeburgh Festival. The songs were not heard again during the composer's life, but were revived, with a revised sequence of readings arranged by Peter Pears, in 1983.
Numbers
1 ''Prologue: 'Where are the seeds of the Universal Fire' (Ten, hn, pf)
2 Song: 'We are the darkness in the heat of the day' (Ten, pf) >>
3 Epilogue: 'So, out of the dark' (Ten, hn, pf)
1 item
Archive
https://www.bpacatalogue.org/archive/BBM-three_songs_from_the_heart_of_the_matter