Burgon: Acquainted With Night

'Acquainted with Night', is a cycle of six songs, for alto and strings, harp and timpani. The texts are all concerned with different aspects of night. The first song, ?Lullaby? to a poem by Beaumont and Fletcher, seeks to evoke the ?care-charming? powers of sleep. The second, a setting of Robert Frost?s ?Acquainted with the night?, is concerned with the lonely world of a strange city at night and the music is characterised by an insistently repeated figure in the accompaniment. The third song contrasts the calmness of the night with the turbulence in a lover?s mind - the poem is by the Earl of Surrey. ?Out in the dark? a poem by Edward Thomas, is the text of the fourth song. It is in the form of a scherzo and deals with the mystery and strangeness of night, and, as the poet puts it, the ?might? of night. It is, as the poet says, a hymn to night and the chordal nature of the accompaniment suggests this quality. This song leads directly into the last, which is in fact a reprise of the opening ?Lullaby? so completing the cycle.