After a thorough grounding at school in the Classical and, in particular, the Romantic musical repertoire, a sixteen-month stay during 1946-47 as an army officer in Nigeria had a liberating and awakening influence upon Francis Burt. Above all, the drum music of the Ibo people of south-east Nigeria awoke in him a lifelong desire to explore the foundations of music in gesture, movement and dance. That is not to say that any overt signs of Ibo music are to be found in his compositions; but nearly all of his earlier work is strongly characterised by elements of dance and rhythm. Thus one could almost call Volpone,premiered in 1960 by Württemburg State Opera, a "dance opera" - for, [...]
