‘The atmosphere is intimate and confiding; the music presented simply with minimal ornament … Davidson puts the words across gently but with gratifying naturalness … beautifully dispatched’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘This disc continues The Brabant Ensemble’s laudable exploration of the byways of Franco-Flemish polyphony. Director Stephen Rice brings perceptive musical insights to these accounts, and also sheds light on Févin’s idiom in the excellent CD booklet. His vocal ensemble may be slender but the singing is robust and buoyantly articulated. Boyish upper voices offset velvety tenors and basses, and the relatively close recording perspective produces a sound at once lucid and lustrous’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘Captured in 2017, while Gowers was still an undergraduate, this recording is an impressive achievement with much fine playing. The organ at King's … has a rich palette of colour and a sense of power when needed. The low reeds growl with wonderful menace in 'Jésus accepte la souffrance' before being overtaken by the movement's resplendent conclusion’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘The whole reading [of the Mozart] has a pleasing impulse, balance and bloom, while the serene beauty these players find in the last bars of the Larghetto amounts to a mystery’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘The Passinge mesures roams through England's musical landscape around the time of Shakespeare, John Donne and Sir Thomas More … these works have sometimes been handled as trifles or decorative miniatures, but Iranian-American harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani treats them as profoundly expressive and introspective works. Here measured, there free, his readings highlight the ebb and flow of their poetry and prose; phrases are rhetorically articulated. Esfahani’s muscular technique enhances the robust rhythms of popular dances like the galliard, jig and romanesca, and his response to Byrd’s hexachord fantasy is visceral rather than cerebral’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘An orchestral colossus’ (Audiophile Audition, USA)

‘An attractive disc, offering satisfying variety. It wins my whole-hearted recommendation’ (MusicWeb International)» More

‘You barely miss the orchestration at all in the first published version of The Rite for piano four-hands (as played by Stravinsky and Debussy in the summer of 1912), thanks to the marvellous range of colours conjured from the keyboard by Andsnes and Hamelin, and the clarity which they bring to even the most thickly-textured passages is a revelation. Their reading of the Circus Polka ‘for a young elephant’ has galumphing charm in spades’ (Presto Classical)

‘There is much to enjoy from portions of the Missa Salve sancta parens—forward momentum and earthy singing contrasting with welcome restraint, intimacy, and refinement … this account [of Ascendens Christus in altum] is an excellent reason to look out for Févin, and this generous forty-two-track release is supplied with Stephen Rice’s comprehensive booklet note and texts and translations’ (Classical Source)

‘Clayton is on communicative form, essaying the many moods with a beguiling sense of spontaneity and with every word telling. His ability to sing ethereally and lightly is a distinct asset as is the capacity to darken the tone and bring a sense of wild urgency to passages. The programming is clever, too, in presenting different versions of the same verse’ (Classical Source)

‘The way those voices move—the way a chorus of multiple voices can suddenly diverge into a duet between soprano and alto or tenor and bass, and the way everything weaves together in a common sense of belief and purpose—is as fascinating as it is beautiful. Beauty also seems a byword for the 20-year old Brabant Ensemble. Recorded in All Saints' Church, East Finchley, London near the start of 2018, the 12-voice ensemble sounds ideally smooth and well-balanced. The sopranos, whose high range exhibits a luminous purity characteristic of English Renaissance vocal ensembles, and whose basses plumb the depths without sounding as though Hades has any chance of overwhelming God's kingdom, blend perfectly with the other voices. Thanks to recording engineer David Hinitt, the balance between vocal clarity and acoustic reverberation is near-ideal’ (Stereophile)

‘Downright glorious … the colourful, jazz-infused score evokes a lively and quixotic city that never sleeps. It is of course pure Bernstein; the tunes are oh-so-memorable and the performances are wide-eyed and big-hearted, which is just as it should be’ (BBC Music Magazine)