In recent years, I have written little music that is not sacred or liturgical. The Yeats Poems and the Seferis Haiku are exceptions, partly I think because both the Irish and Greek poets had a profound sense of the loss of the sacred, and Primordial tradition in art. Also the music for both song-cycles has a quasi-liturgical atmosphere, indeed, the harp harmonics that link the Years songs, are based on a Byzantine Palindrome.
'To a Child Dancing in the Wind' is dedicated to my ex-wife, Victoria Maragopoulou. It was commissioned by the Little Missenden Festival and first performed on 16th October 1983 in Little Missenden Parish Church by Alison Gough (soprano) and the Nimrod Trio.
John Tavener, January 1987
