In spite of having written many works including piano, before composing my new suite of pieces there were only two for solo piano: The Haunting Bough and Pleasure Ground. I decided to incorporate these in a new set of pieces extending the theme of trees and wood (I cut The Haunting Bough into two pieces which frame the suite as the first and last movements, Pleasure Ground is renamed Swinging Bough), and further developing my interest in the poetry, history and appearance of landscape and its features as extra-musical sources. John Casken