The Cornish composer George Lloyd (1913-98) experienced an unlikely renaissance during the 1980s, leading to new creative partnerships. The Albany Symphony Orchestra commissioned his Eleventh (1985) and Twelfth (1989) symphonies, completing a cycle the composer had begun six decades earlier.
At this point, Lloyd could easily have ceased composing, but he received commissions for two major works for choir and orchestra: the Symphonic Mass (1992) and A Litany (1995). Both works were in effect choral symphonies on a grand scale, but not without precedent in Lloyd’s oeuvre.
