If you like your music with a memorable tune, a colorful harmony, an infectious rhythm, and a clear formal structure, then Cornish composer
George Lloyd is your man. While so many other composers of the middle to late twentieth century were writing music that deliberately avoided all trace of the above qualities,
Lloyd was assiduously writing music that embraced these qualities as indispensable, indeed, intrinsic, to music. Best known for his series of 12 symphonies,
Lloyd's art is admirably summed up on this disc coupling his first and last symphonies: the Symphony in A, later known as Symphony No. 1, and his Symphony No. 12. Both are in essentially the same form -- a three-movement-in-one structure with a variations on two themes opening movement, a passionate slow central movement, and a rambunctious and fast closing movement -- and, although composed 57 years apart, both are essentially the same late-Romantic/early modernist language. Imagine a less intellectual Parry, a less modal
Vaughan Williams, and a less monumental
Walton and you have some idea of what to expect. As conducted here by the composer himself, an extremely fervent advocate of his own music, and played by the
Albany Symphony, an extraordinarily dedicated enthusiast for his music, these performances are as good as definitive. While fans of
Thomas Adès may dismiss
Lloyd's music as hopelessly anachronistic, anyone who enjoys
Arnold and Alwyn's symphonies will surely enjoy
Lloyd's. Albany's sound is strong, warm, and full.