Programme Notes:
These two songs, on poems by Emily Dickinson, were written in the summer of 2017 for the soprano Rachel Farago. They are brief and highly contrasting: 'Summer' ('As imperceptibly as grief/ The summer lapsed away') is meditative and nostalgic, whilst 'Hope' ('Hope is the thing with feathers/ That perches in the soul') is mercurial and fleet-footed, evoking the skittering of a bird.

First performance: Rachel Farago (soprano) and Kelvin Lim (piano), 7 September 2017, Chapel of the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich.
© Martin Butler, 2018