These two large-scale works, both uncommissioned and still to be performed, were completed respectively in 1973 and 1976. It isn't surprising to find even that short three-year space to be deceptive: early sketches for Clarissa were going on at the same time as the composition of Cantata on the Death of God; and not only do they seem to have arisen from very similar preoccupations but they should provide, between them and individually, a telling illustration of some of Holloway's most basic intuitions and convictions.