The audience at the Troy Music Hall was in for a treat the night of 30 March 1990: George Lloyd, whose Symphony no.11 had been premiered with the Albany Symphony to rapturous acclaim a few years earlier, was going to conduct both his earliest and latest Symphonies. The First was written in a burst of inspiration after he turned 19 and it was first performed in November of 1932, with a second performance a year later. Then the work was revised twice, and untouched until the 1980s, when Lloyd deemed it worthy of revival. A wonderfully romantic, tuneful work, it abounds in youthful energy and not only sounds robustly "British" but even shows hints of the great Italian opera composers both Lloyd and his father had a passion for (the spirit of The Barber of Seville can be felt in the final sections). The Twelfth Symphony, commissioned for the Albany Symphony, would be his last work in the series. Like the Symphony in A, the work is in a single movement consisting of three continuous sections. Youthful abandon has been replaced by a soaring, heartbreaking lyricism and a sense of drama reflecting the long, often frustrating artistic life Lloyd had, but the work also revels in the kind of victory and resultant calm one achieves late in life. The original CD release, with engineering by the renowned Tony Faulkner, has been a favourite demo disc for years, but the full glory of this music comes out in this SACD remastering.

"After a 20-year hiatus from composing for health reasons, 77-year-old English composer George Lloyd has enjoyed a musical rebirth during the past 15 years. This is true Romantic music, filled with the kinds of tunes found in music of an earlier age, but skillfully composed and orchestrated in a voice that is uniquely Lloyd's, not warmed-over Elgar as some critics have mistakenly claimed. The First Symphony dates from1932 when the composer was not yet 20; the 12th had its world premiere last March. Both are marvelous pieces and join the Fourth and Seventh Symphonies as the finest examples of Lloyd's work." – Daily Herald, Top 10 of the Year