Brian Dennis's output since 1973 is evidence of his fascination with Chinese poetry. During that time he has composed no fewer than nine cycles for voice and piano to his own versions of poems from the T'ang dynasty, showing a particular preference for the poets Wang Wei and Tu Fu. The musical development through these cycles owes as much to Dennis's response to the poetry as to any purely musical necessity. The poems became an obsession, the individual problems they posed the catalyst for each musical change.