'… a score almost every page of which glows with an ingenious and felt musicality, and in which, all too unusually these days, its basic idea – a finely wrought melody for bassoon - is also its most personal and memorable invention'
Sunday Telegraph (Bayan Northcott), 16 May 1982
 
'… is undoubtedly one of the more exciting British symphonic achievements of its decade'
The Listener (Calum MacDonald), 5 December 1985
 
'… its strong construction which integrates substantial Adagio, Allegro and Scherzo sections into a single 35-minute movement of finely controlled direction and power'
The Times (Malcolm Hayes), 16 November 1985