In the commentaries to his Six Monologues from Everyman Frank Martin describes how, looking for a text to set for the baritone Max Christmann, he came across Hofmannstahl’s theatre piece Jedermann [Everyman]. At first he planned to make an opera out of it, but then he selected six monologues that he set for voice and piano in 1943. In 1949 there followed the orchestral version. Martin intended to express a psychological progression in his music, from the fear of death to the prayer in which the rich young man repents of his sins and pleads to heaven for forgiveness. In the Sixth Monologue he realises that his faith and repentance have earned him God’s mercy and that the gates of heaven will be opened for him.