Although A Ceremony of Carols is scored for three part treble voices and harp, the Interlude is a movement intersecting the 7th and 9th movements for harp solo.

The entire work begins and ends with a pro/recessional – which is a setting of the Gregorian antiphon Hodie Christus Natus Est (Today Christ is Born).

The Interlude uses the same melody through the upper part of the writing over bell like harmonics, which build to become octaves and then recede again with drifting glissandi suggestive of angel wings of an ascending spirit.

Even the choice of key signature suggests an other worldliness which was incredible to think that Britten could imagine, given that he composed this work sitting squashed at a table next to a fridge on a cargo vessel coming home from the USA to the UK in 1942.

He also composed his Hymn to St Cecilia at the same time and both works have stylistic similarities.