Programme Note
The first performance was broadcast on Whit Sunday, 1938. The plainsong 'Veni creator spiritus' (Vespers hymn for Whit Sunday) is used in the Prelude to Part I, nos 6a-c and 6f in Part II and as the conclusion to Part III. Britten made a further setting of Hopkins's 'The world is charged' as God's Grandeur in A.M.D.G. The extensive original spoken texts have been abridged by Donald Mitchell and the work may be performed with or without these.