Phil Greenfield of The Baltimore Sun called it "a colorful, dashing work that might become extremely popular if enough people get a chance to hear it.
"[3] Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle also lauded the composition, writing:Its four movements are packed with incident -- beautifully shaped melodies (several of them drawn from her songs), a forthright rhythmic profile and a vivacious and sometimes contentious interplay between soloist and orchestra.
The piano part is as flashy and demanding as a virtuoso vehicle calls for, but there is also an element of poignancy about it -- a sense of constraint that seems to shadow even the work's most extroverted passages.
[6] Andrew Achenbach of Gramophone similarly declared it "ambitious" and "singularly impressive", remarking:An expansively rhetorical Allegro moderato launches the work before a playful perpetuum mobile scherzo and moody Largo (described by its creator as a 'dark, tragic lament'); the finale (which follows without a break) goes with a delightful swing.
In fact, it's a rewarding achievement all round, full of brilliantly idiomatic solo writing (Beach was a virtuoso pianist herself and performed the work many times) and lent further autobiographical intrigue by its assimilation of thematic material from three early songs.