 Auden personally invited Benjamin Britten to write the incidental music for the play.Britten composed the music in February 1937, the month of the play's first production, including a choral setting of "Stop all the clocks" (titled "Funeral Blues").The play was first produced at the Mercury Theatre, London on 26 February 1937, with incidental music by Benjamin Britten conducted from the piano by Brian Easdale.