George Lloyd - George Lloyd: The Vigil of Venus (Pervigilium Veneris) (1991) - Vocal Score (for soprano, tenor, chorus & orchestra)

Conceived on a grand scale, Lloyd's late choral works build fruitfully upon his previous experience in other genres. They share with his operas an innate lyricism, natural affinity with the human voice and feeling for the long line, while their structural balance, intensive working out of motifs and rich orchestral palette owes a significant debt to his prolific symphonic output. A composer with so much to say that is pertinent to our time, capable of expressing it with such vigour, candour and skill, must be accounted a vital creative force in contemporary English music. (Liverpool Daily Post) People who think of George Lloyd as stuck in an all-purpose twentieth-century idiom may get something of a surprise from this choral piece on an anonymous late Roman poem celebrating spring and the goddess of love (Gramophone Magazine)