Tranquillity is a state of mind. You might be more likely to describe a favourite countryside scene rather than a person as 'tranquil', but you are really describing the effect it has on you.

You feel calm, serene, still, at peace, relaxed, untroubled, chilled-out... perhaps we have so many different words for this state of mind because it is so important, and yet so elusive in an often noisy, frantic world.

Music has an extraordinary power to evoke tranquillity - as is revealed in the eleven pieces I have chosen to make up this collection. Ten of them happen to be among my personal favourites, drawn from the music of seven composers, plus the treasure trove of anonymous folk music, and I have added an orchestral version of my choral setting of Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace, a text formerly believed to be by St Francis of Assisi.

- John Rutter