Settings makes use of three late texts by the Austrian poet, Georg Trakl (1887-1914) - Die Sonne, Kaspar Hauser Lied and Klage. The events of Trakl's own short life embody the chief preoccupations of the fin de siecle Expressionist movement. Intense to a neurotic degree, he was obsessed by the power of evil in its most malignant forms, and he sought escape through the use of narcotics. The use ofrecurrent imagery in his work is such that at times the poems are only intelligible in relation to one another. An understanding of the force a particular image carries in one poem will help to elucidate its meaning when it reappears - perhaps more casually - in the next - George Nicholson.