The opening, with its harpsichord accompaniment based in C sharp minor, brings to mind the phlegmatic recitative of the St Matthew Passion, as well as the televison theme tune. The soprano singer, taking the part of the Evangelist, reflects the 'scientific' nature of the television programme and its narrative. But human life breaks through with the young man's awakening, and scientific detachment is abandoned. At first he speaks only through computer beeps, but after the words 'which was, being interpreted', the young man sings aloud. His phrase 'Oh man, oh man' is an inversion of Bach's phrase for the cry from the cross: 'My God, My God...' as well as being a struggle upwards from C sharp minor to C major (C major being the key of 'seeing', i.e. of consciousness.)

Bach's dramatic chorus writing is reflected in the passage suggesting the music which kept the young man's mind alive: this comes at first on trumpets in a subdued 'classical' form and then again as club music with heavy percussion. The tune is derived from the jolly dance music which Bach uses for the Et resurrexit in the B Minor Mass, but of course this is a real and purely human resurrection.

The young man subsides again into sleep, and the music becomes a song without words, computer beeps prompting our imagination of memory and feeling for life. The young man's drifting in and out of consciousness is reflected by an oscillation between C major and C sharp minor. The music seems to be heading for a conventional fade-out, but then there is a sudden shift and it turns to the memory of the injury itself with a terrific blow.

The long deep C at the end leads to the F minor of the last song, Kathleen Ferrier.

© 2000, 2002 Andrew Hodges