Hymn to Night op. 87, for viola with piano accompaniment, for viola and piano

Written for Lawrence Power, Hymn to Night is a fantasia (sequence of free variations, on a paraphrase of La Malinconia from Beethoven's Quartet op. 18 no. 6. My version of Beethoven's adagio is related to a song included in a setting of texts by George Chapman written for voice and viols. The text prefaces the present piece: Men's faces glitter, and their hearts are blacke, But thou (great Mistresse of heavens gloomie racke), Art blacke in face, and glitterst in thy heart. There is thy glorie, riches, force, and Art. © Alexander Goehr