Elliot Carter: In Sleep, In Thunder

Elliot Carter's In Sleep, In Thunder was first performed at St. John's Smith Square in London on October 26th, 1982 by the tenor Martyn Hill with the London Sinonietta. Elliot Carter was comissioned by the London Sinfonietta and In Sleep, In Thunder was the result. It is a song cycle on the verse of Robert Lowell, whom Carter had been considering setting some of his work to music. In Sleep, In Thunder is made up of six songs written for tenor and fourteen instruments. This score that reflects Lowell's words of very human qualities in an ongoing but coherent change throughout, produces a very evocative piece of music.