Blades of Grass was inspired by the poem Grass by Carl Sandburg (1878-1967):
"Pile the bodies high at Austerliz and Waterloo, Shovel them under and let me work-I am the grass; I cover all.
Barlow's Prelude, Air and Variation, written in 1948, is the first twentieth-century work scored for the combination of bassoon, string quartet, and piano. There are earlier compositions from the