'Another winner from Signum is Voces 8's Christmas. As the name implies, these are eight young singers: two sopranos, two counter-tenors, two tenors, a baritone and a bass, who present a cappella arrangements of popular carols, with verve and finesse. I loved hearing such familiar stuff dressed up in new ways that are invariably sophisticated and sensitively done' (Daily Mail)

‘This is an intelligent, challenging anthology, unafraid to show us Prokofiev’s underappreciated darker side. Beautifully recorded too’ (TheArtsDesk.com)

'This timely recital includes songs by those, more ore less obscure who fell young in the First World War—George Butterworth, Albéric Magnard, Rudi Stephan, William Denis Browne and others—and by those who survived, were imprisoned or were otherwise affected by that shameful conflict. The gifted tenor Robin Tritschler's singing is nuanced sensitively, while the pianist Malcolm Martineau is, as always, an astute partner' (The Sunday Times)

'Beirut-born French organist Naji Hakim, Messiaen’s successor at La Trinité in Paris, is also, like Messiaen, a composer, though of an entirely different cut. The four works here are a visit to a world you thought had disappeared. The Sakskøbing Preludier, based on a selection of Danish 'hymns for our time', are a kind of light music that would have been downmarket from Poulenc in the 1950s. The chamber concertos are in the same general vein, with some Eastern colouring in the first. But there’s a vim in the Fourth Organ Concerto that’s lacking elsewhere, and an offbeat fairground brio in its finale. The performances are marred by some off-colour string intonation' (The Irish Times)

‘Yet in its original form, as Vladimir Jurowski's gripping performance (from a Royal Festival Hall concert last year) shows, it's already a fearsomely original conception, without the sheer muscle of the final version perhaps, but still unlike anything in the orchestral repertory at that time. The OAE's period instruments emphasise its rawness, just as they point up the anguished detail of the accompaniments to the Lieder eines Fahrenden Gesellen … without unnecessary gilding' (The Guardian)» More

'It's sure to be a favourite with choirs up and down the country for many Christmases to come' (The Observer)

‘[Jurowski] judges the variety of weight and the palette of colour in the orchestral sonority ideally, and is ready with the essential instrumental dialogues with the soloist in the finale. The concerto is not exactly under-represented in the catalogue, but this penetrating, luminous and dynamic interpretation is one to linger over’ (The Daily Telegraph)

'There's much worth celebrating on this excellent new (or newish) recording of Bruckner's Fourth Symphony. The venue is the Royal Festival Hall, the date October 30, 2008 … the principal attraction here is a sense of blossoming growth, the way the first movement's climaxes gradually gain in intensity … we're clearly in a different place and the heat is full on' (Gramophone)

'Culminating in beautiful performances of Byrd and Monte's famous collaboration (one might almost say commiseration) Super flumina Babylonis/Quomodo cantabimus, this album brings together some of Byrd's most agonized musical utterances with some surprisingly melancholy works by Monte' (Early Music Review)» More

'The core of Llyr Williams' recital disc is a selection of five pieces from the second, Italian, book of Liszt's Annees de Pelerinage—the little Canzonetta del Salvator Rosa and the three Petrarch Sonnets, leading up to the great, climactic Dante Sonata. As he also showed in his Edinburgh festival recital last week, Williams is a superb Liszt interpreter, never content to use even the most technically demanding music as just a vehicle for flashy display, but always looking beneath the elaborate surfaces for deeper rigour and meaning. That doesn't mean he ever understates the music's sense of theatre or misjudges its sense of scale, though; there's a tremendous power and intensity to his Dante Sonata that's maintained from the taut opening phrases to the very final bars. He prefaces his sequence with the Tarentella that ends Venezia e Napoli, Liszt's supplement to the Italian Annee, and adds the Bénédiction de Dieu dans la Solitude and the transcription of the Liebestod from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde as mighty, powerfully wrought postscripts' (The Guardian)

'Paul McCreesh envisages 'the world's largest chamber choir' that would emulate a chamber choir's 'extremely nuanced, coloured and articulate singing' … if the soloists, Sarah Connolly sings with mellifluous tone and Simon Keenlyside is an Elijah of spirit and intelligence: he may not have the sheer weight of a Bryn Terfel, but he's alive to every shift of meaning and his diction is, as ever, impeccable. The gut strings, unimpeded by vibrato, bring splendid urgency to the texture' (BBC Music Magazine)» More

'this release is an absolutely tremendous achievement … it is the choir that is the heart of the piece and the performance. All ages, joyful, uninhibited yet unanimous, they carry all before them. Was this the best tenor section ever? Has unison singing ever been so thrilling? The starry soloists also give their best, with Simon Keenlyside a magisterial Elijah to whom future performers of the role will surely look for inspiration … set an evening aside and prepare to be uplifted with the prophet. You'll feel that you're in his fiery chariot' (Early Music Review)» More