PROGRAMME NOTES

Lust

Six solo voices, AATTBB (1974)

Text: St Augustine/Dickinson

Peter Dickinson was commissioned, along with six other composers, to contribute to a concert given by the King’s Singers based on the seven deadly sins. He chose lust and decided to draw on the versatility of the group in popular idioms. A baritone from the group declaims a passage from the Confessions of St Augustine condemning the sin of lust. The remaining five singers alternate slow chorales with simple pop songs close to the style of early Beatles, celebrating the very things St Augustine condemns. The two original pop songs later reappear in Dickinson’s orchestral piece Merseyside Echoes (1988).

The first performance was given by the King’s Singers in the Cheltenham Festival on 8 July 1974.