This piece is scored for Soprano and Piano. A Penny for a Song was written in Autumn 1981 for Penny Price Jones and Philip Martin, who commissioned it with funds provided by the Arts Council of Great Britain. It consists of tensongs, prefaced by a piano piece, which acts as a refrain, heard again between Nos. 6 and 7, and before the last song. All the texts are miniatures - some are haiku, a Japanese Zen poetic form, and they all have in common a numberof Haiku characteristics, such as vivid im...