AN AFRICAN SHRINE FOR SOLO PIANO

Lloyd's first solo piano piece, An African Shrine (1966), was written for the great British pianist, John Ogdon, who premiered it on 30 August 1969 for a BBC Radio 3 broadcast and recorded it a year later for EMI. The material teems with invention of the highest quality, yet the composer keeps a tight rein on his ideas. Weighty, dramatic sequences are counterpoised convincingly with gentler, lyrical episodes inside an expansive, sweeping canvas that honours the depth and seriousness of the music's underlying theme. Above all, the music is unequivocally, and compellingly, pianistic and could not have been written for any other medium.