'… a subtle and tumultuous symphonic poem … my interest was gripped by the confident breadth of the melodic writing and the richness and delicacy of orchestral invention … It is a piece of impressive large-scale musical thinking, full of exciting sounds and freshly heard harmonies'
The Sunday Times (David Cairns), 15 December 1985
'A germinal chord … provides much of the work’s harmonic basis … A substantial introduction is built upon this material, only to make way for a vast scherzo that must rank as one of the biggest pieces of bravura writing in Matthews’s output. Though this reaches its peak of energy fairly early and then progressively unwinds, it maintains a boisterous but increasingly phantasmagoric vigour throughout most of its length'
The Listener (Calum MacDonald), 5 December 1985
The Sunday Times (David Cairns), 15 December 1985
'A germinal chord … provides much of the work’s harmonic basis … A substantial introduction is built upon this material, only to make way for a vast scherzo that must rank as one of the biggest pieces of bravura writing in Matthews’s output. Though this reaches its peak of energy fairly early and then progressively unwinds, it maintains a boisterous but increasingly phantasmagoric vigour throughout most of its length'
The Listener (Calum MacDonald), 5 December 1985