‘… a richly melodic, lavishly orchestrated piece about the loss and reclamation of innocence, love and faith … its most consistent influences are early-20th-century French music and English oratorio, but there are also echoes of Classical era string texture, late Romantic wind and brass scoring, and rhythmic figuration that calls to mind Leonard Bernstein’s theatre music.
Character sketches within the work range even further afield, drawing on a Spanish folk melody and parodying a German drinking song …’
Allan Kozinn, The New York Times, 29 June 1991