In July, 1945, Benjamin Britten accompanied the violinist Yehudi Menuhin on a brief tour of defeated Germany. One day, the two men visited the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. Britten went home and set to music the most spiritually scouring poetry that he could find -— the Holy Sonnets of John Donne. He composed nine songs at feverish speed, beginning, on August 2nd. On August 6th, the day of Hiroshima, Britten set Sonnet XIV, which begins, “Batter my heart, three-person’d God.” Robert Oppenheimer was spellbound by the same poem, and had it in mind when he named the site of the first atomic test Trinity.