Compline is a septet for flute, clarinet, harp, and string quartet by the American composer Christopher Rouse.
[1]He added, "Unlike the majority of other works I composed in the half dozen years before it, Compline does not concern itself with death but rather with light.
Rouse's string repetitions at the beginning are bright and hard; their textures are pierced by raucous, virtuosic quasi-bird calls from the two winds.
Soon the music draws back into a kind of nightscape, flute and harp singing against strings in close harmony.
[2]James C. Taylor of the Los Angeles Times called it "a dense work for seven instruments" with moments "that sneak up on one's ears and offer real delight.