Harrison Birtwistle, "Fields of Sorrow"

-- Liner Notes --

The Fields of Sorrow shares the Orpheus-orientation with Nenia (the text by Ausonius from the Aeniad refers to the souls of lost lovers wandering around the underworld); and shares the spatial, symmetrical layout of the voices and instruments with Verses, though the actual constitution of the instrumental groups develops the single-timbre principle of Nenia.

Unlike Nenia, however, the continuity of The Fields of Sorrow is not dependent on the text, but is laid out in the formalised manner of Verses. But gone is the hard-edge, high-contrast dynamism of Verses, and not merely because it would be inappropriate in a setting of the text. For in his third phase Birtwistle has initiated a primarily melodic, nondynamic, processional style which might appear to have more in common with first phase works such as Monody for Corpus Christ; than with the post-Tragoedia music.