[Full programme note here]

In 1972 Annalibera Dallapiccola, whose passion was classical Indian art, gave me a copy of A.K.Ramanujan’s The Interior Landscape. The book quickly did the rounds of my friends. The imagery of the Tamil poems, at once luminous and precise, their energy of spirit and senses, fired the imagination of a number of composers during the 70s. The present work was composed in 1974 and is by way of being a companion piece to The Same Day Dawns by Nicola LeFanu, composed earlier the same year.

Jane Manning had performed and broadcast a number of my works by 1974, and I had recently composed the mammoth soprano part(s) in Aria for Edward John Eyre for her. My Sister’s Song , commissioned by the Camden Festival, was also written for her; she gave the first performance in the spring of 1975.