May I add to the obituary of Fleur Adcock by mentioning her many collaborations with the composer Dame Gillian Whitehead, her friend and fellow New Zealander?
They met in 1979 and were to collaborate seven times. Notable were the two theatrical chamber works, Hotspur (1980) and Eleanor of Aquitaine (1982).
These led to two large orchestral monodramas – Out of This Nettle, Danger (1983), for which Adcock assembled texts of Katherine Mansfield, and Alice (2002), in which Adcock drew on the life of her great-aunt.
Other composers, myself included, have been drawn to setting Adcock’s poetry, but Whitehead was her friend and closest collaborator.
