Coronach was first recorded by mezzo-soprano Helen Lothian with violist Simon Roland-Jones for BBC Radio Three, and broadcast on the 2 April 1995. Its first live performance was at Kettles Yard in Cambridge, with violist and composer Russell Millard.
Coronach was completed in January 1995, and commissioned by BBC Radio Three for their Fairest Isle Songbook series, broadcast that same year. Scored for mezzo-soprano and solo viola, the work sets a poem by the Scottish poet, Olive Fraser (1909-77) - a lament on the majestic tragedy of a "stoned and dying cygnet".
Like the panels of a Byzantine triptych, Coronach is cast in three sections. At the heart of the work is the song itself, framed either side by viola meditations, that muse on the poem's central image.
