Song cycle for soprano with string quartet. Text is sourced from an anonymous poem in the Book of Exeter: ‘Eardstapa’. Premiere performance in tandem with Pulsar Festival - the Royal Danish Academy of Music.

Nightshadows deepen

            in this earthly kingdom

The turn of events changes

            the world under the heavens,

Therefore I cannot think why

            throughout the world

my mind should not grow dark.

The man weary in spirit

cannot withstand fate,

nor may the troubled mind

            offer help.

            Care is renewed

for the one who must very often send

his weary spirit over the

            binding of the waves,

            So this middle-earth

fails and falls each day;

Falling snowstorm binds the earth,

the noise of winter

            familiar utterances,

                        Fate is inexorable.