The composer described the work in the score program notes, writing, "The poem is full of the vivid imagery of the couple's dreams, of high palaces with forty-nine doors, 'tingling stars', and an ogre lover that waits 'inside death' for Sylvia to return to him every night."
She added:The Ogre Lover was written immediately after finishing a large-scale orchestral piece (which completed my recently submitted PhD portfolio).
This had left my brain somewhat frazzled (and temporarily unable to cope with the 'large-scale harmonic structures' with which I had become so obsessed): in The Ogre Lover I therefore simply had fun, indulging myself with all the timbres, motives and harmonies that the poem suggested.
[2] Barry Witherden of BBC Music Magazine similarly remarked, "Refreshingly, on this evidence, Frances-Hoad's allegiances are to mainstream modernism, rather than the various popular post-modernist ‘isms’.
[3] Ivan Hewett of The Daily Telegraph was slightly more critical, writing, "Frances-Hoad's skill at creating a rich texture from modest chamber forces is astonishing.