Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, / Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, / Silence the pianos and with muffled drum / Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. The first, less well-known, version of ‘Stop all the clocks’ published in 1936, was a satirical poem of mourning for a political leader, composed for the verse play The Ascent of F6, by W H Auden and Christopher Isherwood. The familiar 1938 version was written to be sung by the soprano Hedli Anderson to a setting by Benjamin Britten.
Photo: London, May 2016