‘All good things must come to an end, and this ninth release in the Tallis Scholars’ series of recordings of the Masses of Josquin is it … where now for the Tallis Scholars? Wherever they are bound, I shall continue to follow their progress with great interest. Meanwhile, this final shot in their Josquin locker may well be joining my choice of Recordings of the Year’ (MusicWeb International)

‘Angela Hewitt’s CD is very hard to beat indeed … I’m not usually a big fan of entire programmes of variations, but this particular recording is a delight from start to finish’ (MusicWeb International)» More

‘Two golden qualities leap out at once. One is the glorious singing. Tonal purity, articulation, ensemble spirit: everything here is sheer perfection, but it’s never the perfection that chills. Phillips’ unaccompanied voices, mostly numbering nine, bring passion and warmth to every note, however complex the counterpoint’s web. The second is the forceful appeal of Josquin’s music. If Phillips wanted to end the series with a bang, he couldn’t have chosen a better work than the 'Missa Hercules Dux Ferrarie', written for Duke Ercole I of Ferrara, a classy arts patron who ultimately became Lucrezia Borgia’s father-in-law … this is a heavenly album’ (The Times)

‘I love the athletic passion of Sophie Rennert’s mezzo, rich but so responsive to these vignettes with their erotic overtones. Graham Johnson relishes the economy of Brahms’s settings and they make an excellent duo in the other songs here, including Brahms’s two gorgeous opus 91 songs with viola, played with moving eloquence by Lawrence Power … as always, the insights and notes from Graham Johnson’s booklet essay are almost worth the price of admission on their own’ (BBC Record Review)

‘The latest in the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s excellent RVW cycle, conductor Martyn Brabbins … if you need a reason to opt for this eloquent recording, with so many fine versions around, it’s this: the incidental music for Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress is performed in its original 1906 guise. With contributions from folk voice Emily Portman, mezzo-soprano Kitty Whately, baritone Marcus Farnsworth, the BBC Symphony Chorus and a quartet from the BBC Singers, it’s a rewarding novelty and part of the continuing exploration of a composer whose reputation seems unstoppable’ (The Observer)

‘The temptation is merely to write that Stephen Layton and his Trinity College choir have done it again. So accustomed are those of us who review choral music to enjoying flawless excellence from them (as well as the magnificent Hyperion engineering and production team) that we have come almost to take it for granted. But even with such high expectations from the outset, the very first item here transports us into an altogether higher realm of sublimity, while the first of the three Stuttgart Psalms presents choral singing of a brilliance which simply sets new standards … there is a vast wealth of musical interest here, linked only by a thorough understanding of the medium and a musical language which is immensely lovely’ (MusicWeb International)» More

‘It’s a quality of performance and recording we’ve come to depend on from [Stephen Layton and Trinity College Choir] … I love the sound of the recording itself’ (BBC Record Review)

‘No qualifications are required for Angela Hewitt’s new Beethoven album of seven variation sets, a couple of them trifling but fun (variations on Rule, Britannia! and God Save the King), but others bracing creations deserving of greater fame. Hewitt’s touch is remarkably nimble and poetic’ (The Times)

‘This is the final disc in The Tallis Scholars’ complete recording of Josquin des Pres’s masses. Perhaps it is just as well, because this reviewer is running out of superlatives for the music itself and for this choir’s performances of it … here they still are, 34 years later, doing a major work full justice and laying bare the glories of two more of those marginal masses’ (Early Music)

‘Martyn Brabbins has reached the halfway point in his Hyperion/BBCSO Vaughan Williams Symphony cycle and his account of the solace-giving and transcending Fifth (first heard in 1943, the composer conducting) is as notable as the first four are in terms of performance and recording … Brabbins’s view of Symphony 5 is absorbing and spot-on in terms of tempo, transitions, phrasing and closely observed detailing and dynamics, structurally seamless from distant horizons to organically arrived-at ecstatic climaxes, the BBCSO opulent and sensitive in response, beautifully recorded by Simon Eadon and flawlessly produced by Andrew Keener. In particular, the ‘Romanza’ third movement is especially rapt.’ (colinscolumn.com)» More

‘This CD marks the triumphant completion of The Tallis Scholars’ cycle of Masses by the fifteenth-century composer Josquin des Prés. And as the choir’s director Peter Phillips points out, the first and greatest of these works reflects both the vanity of its dedicatee and the felicitousness of its construction. The Duke of Ferrara liked to hear his name sung obviously and often—he’d have fitted in well in the era of Donald Trump—so the composer took his name and title and turned their vowels into music, to create a neat little eight-note melody. He then ordains that this melody should be sung 47 times, mostly by the tenors. The effects are surprisingly intricate, and the singing here has a lovely warmth and freshness; the other two works have subtly different colourings. The acoustic of the Oxford chapel in which this music is recorded is perfectly appropriate’ (The Independent)

‘The Op 34 Variations find Hewitt on rare form. Her lapidarian, multilayered fingerwork and witty inflections throughout Var 2 are simply to die for, especially those ear-tickling trills … in Var 8 [of Op 35], the Fazioli’s timbral distinction in each register gorgeously reveals itself. She eschews the mincing tenutos pianists love to sprinkle across Var 11 and doesn’t allow Var 13’s heavy chords to overpower the melodic grace notes. Hewitt discreetly yet noticeably wrings out the harmonic tension from the minore Var 14. Her concluding fugue is as clear and lucid as one would expect from a master Bachian’ (Gramophone)