In December 1996 Arvo Pärt accepted the commission to write a work for Lancing College’s 150th anniversary. Given that Benjamin Britten had written the Saint Nicholas cantata for the College’s centenray in 1948, Pärt originally planned to write a work on a text for Mary, fellow patron of the school. Searching through and Orthodox prayer-book for a suitable passage, he came across a Triodion, a group of three prayers – to Christ, to Mary the Mother of God, and to St Nicholas (he was later to find a 15th-century icon from Russia, depicting these same three figures).

This recording, the work’s first, was made in 1998 in the presence of the composer.