Vixen

"Joyous and ecstatic and searching and evanescent by turns... primitive energy conveyed with the crushing force of a musical juggernaut." BBC Music Magazine 2002

"What impresses immediately in both of these works is the clarity of Hoyland's compositional thought. Although the language is in many ways uncompromisingly tough, there is an audible architectural structure evident in both Vixen and In Transit that surfaces through a strong sense of melody combined with the use of binding rhythmic structures that although often complex, return regularly as points of reference. It can be no coincidence that one of Hoyland's early interests was architecture. Indeed, it was the intricate patterns in the architecture of the Centre for the Arab World in Paris that proved to be one of the major influences in the composition of Vixen. This, Hoyland combines with an interest in the mathematical writings of Avicenna, an eleventh century Persian scholar whose work included reference to music but more specifically to rhythm and rhythmic cycles."
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Apr02/Hoyland.htm