These variations, on a theme from a Greek tomb dating from the first century AD, were written in the summer of 1966, when the composer was seventeen, and first performed at a symposium held by Phrontisterion, the classical society of Lancing College, Sussex. The epitaph reads: 'As long as you live, shine bright; grieve over nothing at all; life is short, time asks an end in return.' Of the seven original variations, four were reused, with one new one, on 21 June 1975 at a concert in Wolfson College, Oxford: it is these five that appear here. In 1966 the variations were entitled with the initials of members of Phrontisterion, in 1975 with those of members of Wolfson.