Acquainted With Night

'Acquainted with Night', is a cycle of six songs, for alto and strings, harp and timpani. The texts are all concerned with different aspects of night. The first song, ‘Lullaby’ to a poem by Beaumont and Fletcher, seeks toevokethe ‘care-charming’ powers of sleep. The second, a setting of Robert Frost’s ‘Acquainted with the night’, is concerned with the lonely world of a strange city at night and the music is characterised by an insistentlyrepeatedfigure in the accompaniment. The third song contrasts the calmness of the night with the turbulence in a lover’s mind - the poem is by the Earl of Surrey. ‘Out in the dark’ a poem by Edward Thomas, is the text of thefourthsong. It is in the form of a scherzo and deals with the mystery and strangeness of night, and, as the poet puts it, the ‘might’ of night. It is, as the poet says, a hymn to night and the chordal nature of theaccompanimentsuggests this quality. This song leads directly into the last, which is in fact a reprise of the opening ‘Lullaby’ so completing the cycle.