This late minimalist, 74-minute piece for orchestra and tape has had, and continues to have, a near-legendary effect on its audience.

It starts with a recording of a homeless man singing a halting, simple melody looped over and over. Then Gavin Bryars builds this with a full orchestra brought in incrementally, from the first carefully placed short pendulum string sweep to the point when, 10 minutes from the end, the gravelly-voiced singer Tom Waits joins in. It's an obvious but effective work - appealing to all the basics of our emotional nervous system, but still tragically beautiful.