Composer Philip Grange wrote the music on this CD for the combination of flute, clarinet, percussion, piano, violin and cello, the line-up of Peter Maxwell Davies' group the Fires of London, which commissioned Cimmerian Nocturne in 1978 and Variations several years later. Grange uses literary works as sources of inspiration including novels by Joseph Conrad and William Golding (whose Darkness Visible gives the title to this disc). a Gramophone Magazine 'Critcs' Choice' CD 2006.