George Lloyd: 'Day and Night in the City' III. Allegro scherzando from Symphony No. 4 'The Arctic' for orchestra [Printed Music] Short Pieces for Orchestra

"I had the pleasure of attending a thrilling performance of George Lloyd’s Fourth Symphony, by the Ealing Symphony Orchestra. The venue was packed, and the audience gave the work an ecstatic reception. It had been 37 years since the piece was last heard in public; I trust it won't be another 37 years before it is heard again.

George Lloyd had to wait until his 70s to win recognition as a composer because the musical establishment ridiculed and rejected a man whose only crime was to write music in romantic tradition, with he did because he liked it and his public liked it: and in the end public demand forced performances of his work. Lloyd’s day will come again- indeed, is coming… That he remains a minority taste in the musical world is the fault of an establishment that awaits its emperor’s new clothes moment. Let us hope that moment comes before its fatuous attitudes destroy classical music’s audience once and for all, and while Venables- unlike Lloyd- is still around to enjoy the success his talent merits." This piece originally appeared in the Telegraph, 26 May 2018

"In Lloyd's music, one can experience the existential, traumatic experiences and the longing for redemption and transcendence at every turn. And one immediately understands that he must have been a born opera composer (his three operas will be released in the Lyrita edition): melodically as catchy as they are distinctive, rhythmically extremely vibrant, and consistently captivating in its events characterized by strong contrasts. While these events do not unfold in contradiction to purely musical laws, they follow an almost tangible plot that, in its surprising and extremely effective twists and turns, enthralls the listener like a thrilling film. The expressive range extends from capriciously lively scherzos (flirting with "light music") to the most intimate lyricism and on to the catastrophic.

Lloyd has amalgamated the entire tradition and transformed the simple and the complex into something unmistakably his own. He constructs his large-scale forms with a sure hand, and except in the first symphony, there is no schematic approach and no dullness. The orchestration is of magnificent power, delicacy, and versatility (one has to invoke names like Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff to make suitable comparisons). For beginners, I would recommend works such as the vehement first piano concerto, the transfigured cello concerto, the profoundly visionary John Donne cantata "A Litany," and, of course, all the mature symphonies. The second violin concerto (with strings) and the piano and chamber music are also wonderful. There are no shortcomings, even though around 1970 he went through a phase that tended more towards factual brevity! As a symphonist, Lloyd reaches a solitary peak in the tragic Seventh Symphony (1957-59). With "H. M. S. Trinidad," he wrote one of the most magnificent marches in history. And when, at the end of the monumental "Symphonic Mass," the solo trumpet, in an improvisationally liberating manner, winds its farewell around the vocal line, we are all simply moved. George Lloyd is a great discovery!” Christoph Schlüren, Fono Forum