Carlisle Floyd’s Overture for Orchestra was written in response to a commission by the South Carolina Tricentennial Commission. The groups choice was an appropriate one as Floyd, besides being one of his generations most talked about and most performed composers, is also an illustrious son of the Palmetto State. But music for the orchestra alone is somewhat of an unusual venture for the composer; his first successes were in the realm of vocal music for soprano and orchestra and for the dramatic stage. With his award-winning setting of the Biblical story of Susannah and the Elders, Floyd captured the imagination of a musical public keenly interested in the establishment of native American musical drama able to compete with the national drama of the European countries. Following Susannah, there appeared settings of Wuthering Heights, the Passion of Jonathan Wade, and The Sojourner and Mollie Sinclair. In this series of ambitious works, one could see the simple tunes and tonal harmonies of the first works gradually taking on more sophistication though Floyd never moves to the point of abandoning his roots in the traditional music of the Southland.

The outstanding feature of Overture for Orchestra is its formal clarity. This spacious and energetic works falls into several sections of markedly different characters, with each of these organized around one or more basic elements that provide a thread of continuity for the entire passage. The initial section (Largo maestoso) is built upon a distinctive short-long rhythmic motive heard both in the long notes, and also in the crisp rhythmic gestures that happen on each quarter beat. Despite the wealth of chromatic tones, this music remains firmly rooted around the strong D’s in the bass, even when the music moves to a more cantabile section in 6/8. Three measures of the Largo return to frame the first part, but suddenly the tempo is doubled and the oboe and clarinet announce a perky tune that dances along briskly for the next several pages. The clever touch that animates this Vivace comes in the rapid alternation of 3/4 and 5/8 meters. The listener’s ear is beguiled into solving the resulting eleven-note pattern but a sly composer soon begins to vary the regularity of the time changes. A second tune (wind and strings) enters with a slackening of pace, but the combination of the two ideas is interrupted by the sudden return of the opening material.

Soon the music shifts to G for a more tranquil episode (marked Lento mosso) in which the folkish element of Susannah plays a prominent part. With the removing of mutes the string writing soars expressively in this central panel, but soon the Overture begins to thread it's way through a varied reprise of most of the material already heard. Floyd gives special attention to the return of the opening, with a flourish of the timpani broadening out the final bars in a most colorful manner.

— taken from a program note
by Robert McMahan.