‘Dame Moura's virtuosity quietly stuns. Her Mendelssohn, Liszt and Litolff are fleet and joyful; Granados's The Maiden and the Nightingale and Debussy's Clair de lune sing from the heart’ (BBC Music Magazine)

'Page and the Orchestra of Classical Opera have an unerring knack for making the most out of the young Mozart's characterful music … tenors Andrew Kennedy and Allan Clayton sing with an ideal synthesis of muscular directness and Mozartian elegance … [Worldliness's arias] are both sung with mischievous elan by Sophie Bevan' (Gramophone)

'From being regarded as a member of the British avant garde in the late 1950s, through his performances as a jazz pianist and accompanist, to composing operas for Sadler's Wells and Covent Garden and scores for high-profile British and American movies, Bennett has commuted effortlessly between styles. These unaccompanied choral works, immaculately presented by the BBC Singers conducted by Paul Brough, includes pieces from the last 13 years of that career' (The Guardian)» More

'This debut recording by the clean-voiced and agile Contrapunctus ensemble includes a genuine discovery, perhaps expected when scholar/conductor Owen Rees is in charge. Rees has built a reputation as a seeker-out of lost choral glories of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and here reveals a 'new' work by Thomas Tallis. Previously thought to be an instrumental piece marked simply 'Libera', Rees makes a convincing case that its underpinning is the plainchant antiphon, Libera nos, salva nos, indicating that Tallis intended it for voices. The choir sings it and works by Byrd, Philippe de Monte, Pedro de Cristo and Martin Peerson with admirable, firm-toned fluidity. More, please' (The Observer)

‘The individual strands of the chamber version make the music even more claustrophobic than it need be, so that by the end of the half-hour the feeling that you are in the sauna is overwhelming. This team makes sure that you share their efforts to the full’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘They play with a control that brings real dramatic immediacy to the pieces … all the players converse with a single voice—the herding calls of the third movement [of the Schubert], for instance, have their own distinct colour simply by virtue of the other-worldly accuracy of their tuning’ (Gramophone)

'The 18 trebles of the King’s choir have a good cutting edge to their sound and overall they make a very good showing … Cleobury’s performance is, in the main, light on its feet' (MusicWeb International)

'A fine account of Britten's solo cello music, inspired by admiration of Rostropovich, and stemming from a 'challenging' period of this cellist's life. There is an ample note by M. Ross, explaining the complicated relationships between Britten, Rostropovich and Sacher. An excellent album but do listen to the Suites one at a time!' (Musical Pointers)

'The three solo suites (1964-71) were written for Britten's friend Mstislav Rostropovich. Britten references the great solo cello works by Bach with his neo-baroque titling of some of the movements, but in the melancholy slow pieces he pays tribute to the music of Rostropovich's Russian homeland, with cantilenas redolent of doleful folk songs. In the third, he quotes three Tchaikovsky arrangements and the funeral Kontakion (the Russian Orthodox Hymn to the Departed). Walton completes his survey of Britten's cello music with this disc, including the theme for a composite piece dedicated to Paul Sacher. None of this music holds terrors for Walton, with his big, bold tone and formidable technique' (The Sunday Times)

'Britten’s suites for solo cello are not perhaps an easy listen any more than they are easy to play, but Jamie Walton’s absorbing performances of all three seem to expose and explore the emotional heart and soul that went into the writing of them … Walton’s range of utterance is rich, subtly inflected and a towering testament to his innate musicality and profound thinking' (The Daily Telegraph)» More

'Tenebrae has already recorded another substantial work by Russian composer Alexander Levine (b.1955), Prayers for Mankind. They understand his soundworld and this makes for a polished and convincing rendering. Those listeners who, like me, have spent hours absorbing Orthodox divine liturgy settings by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Tavener will find much to savour here. The language is tonal, often gentle and sustained, but always contrasted, deeply expressive of the sacred texts, and consistently rewarding, interpreted through the vibrato-free yet appropriately sonorous timbre of Tenebrae' (Choir & Organ)

'Owen Rees's vocal ensemble Contrapunctus here presents a programme of Renaissance polyphony ingeniously employing lamentations for the subjugation of Jerusalem as code expressions of the plight of both English Catholics under Protestant rule, and Portuguese oppressed by Spanish hegemony. It's a rich seam of material by such as Tallis, Byrd and Cardoso. The theme is most evocatively summarised in the line from Psalm 136, How shall we sing the song of the Lord in a strange land?This forms the root both of Philippe de Monte's enchanting eight-voice motet setting of Super Flumina Babylonis, and William Byrd's equally exquisite response, Quomodo Cantabimus' (The Independent)