‘Mahan Esfahani and Carolyn Sampson are the perfect exponents of this repertoire with every item given a scrupulously faithful performance that never patronises any of the pieces, but treats each of them as though it were a miniature masterpiece, as indeed many of them are. Both of the keyboard instruments are pungent and characterful and beautifully recorded. It is only comparatively recently that recording technology has been enabled to capture the intimate sound of the clavichord, which was the domestic practice instrument of choice in the eighteenth century and could only be heard to best advantage by the player … Carolyn Sampson’s contributions are a particular pleasure and provide a welcome contrast to the keyboard pieces. The effect of the disc as a whole is to present a portrait of Bach’s second wife through the music that he chose for her, a woman about whom we know so little and of whom there is not even a visual image. As Esfahani says, ‘Whilst the works … are slight and of seemingly little value … they nonetheless manifest the entire spirit of a civilization whose values we would do well to understand with the same energy with which we master Bach’s considerable demands on our technical and expressive abilities.’ This is a recording to which listeners will wish to return repeatedly’ (MusicWeb International)

‘The Gesualdo Six sounds more apt and atmospheric and their reduced number better suits the simpler, more direct means of communication Byrd favours here as opposed to the more florid, 'continental' mode of his European contemporaries … the homogeneity of the group is impeccable and the contrast between those passages in the mass where Byrd reduces or changes the number of voices involved and when the full consort of six sings together in full voice is very apparent’ (MusicWeb International)» More

‘Pure in tone, intonation impeccable, the Gesualdo Six sing with precision and fluency, every line of polyphony audible. The Sixteen, the Tallis Scholars, Winchester Cathedral Choir and others have made top recordings of this repertoire. The chamber scale of the Gesualdo Six creates an authentic intimacy for works that might well have risked the lives of those who performed it’ (The Guardian)

‘The pièce de la résistance is Malzew’s arrangement of Gershwin’s Rhapsody—now Phantasy—in Blue, an inspired instrumental synthesis: raucous, sassy, percussive and truly in the spirit of the jazz age. The cello steals the clarinet’s opening solo, and gradually invades the piano’s position. It works. Malzew hits the jackpot with a chamber version of a classic score to knock out a summer festival audience’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘Martyn Brabbins has the music—and the traditions on which it draws—intuitively under his radar. Impeccably he sculpts the flow and sweep that is so often Stanford’s expressive default position, yet no less impressive is the purposefulness and energy of the fugal ‘Quam olim’ and the ethereal poise of the ‘Sanctus’. With fine singing from chorus and soloists alike the Requiem discloses one of Stanford’s greatest achievements’ (BBC Music Magazine)» More

‘This is a lovely new disc of string quartets … [Coleridge-Taylor’s Fantasiestücke] is really attractive music … the playing is so generous and open-hearted … it’s really great to hear a quartet like the Takács taking it on with such care and beauty’ (BBC Record Review)

‘I was unaware of the music of Ivo Antognini until this disc arrived but I liked what I heard very much. All the music is very well conceived for choral forces; the textures are consistently interesting; the harmonic language and melodies make the music very accessible. In short, this is imaginative choral music by a composer who clearly has something to say and who responds very well indeed to the texts he sets. Antognini is brilliantly served by the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge. These performances are fully up to the standard that has earned them such a strong reputation. I think this music is particularly suited to fresh, young and very well-trained voices, such as we have here. Throughout the programme Stephen Layton’s thorough training ensures that rhythmic precision, blend, tuning and clarity of both words and music are all excellent. The recordings were made by the seasoned team of engineer David Hinitt and producer Adrian Peacock. They have captured the sound of the choir most pleasingly in the sympathetic acoustic of the Church of St Peter and St Paul, Salle; from memory, that was a favoured recording haunt of The Tallis Scholars some years ago. The documentation is excellent; Paul Conway’s notes give us a clear and succinct introduction to the music. I shall be looking out for more music by Ivo Antognini.’ (MusicWeb International)

‘A strong performance [of the Gloria from the Mass in G minor] from the choir of Westminster Abbey conducted by James O’Donnell, and they capture the power and confidence that emerges after the sense of mystery in the opening Kyrie. James MacMillan’s music doesn’t feel out of place between Vaughan Williams and John Tavener, whose Canticles for King’s College Cambridge get the kind of performance that would stay long in the memory if you heard it at evensong. Twentieth- and twenty-first-century additions to this living tradition; excellent sound’ (BBC Record Review)

‘This is a genuinely excellent disc in every respect. Martyn Brabbins has a sure and certain grasp of the scale and sweep of this substantial 74:26 work but in many ways it is the summation of all the individual excellence that combine to make this such a satisfying listening experience. The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra play with all their usual skill and sensitivity. A major plus is the singing of the University of Birmingham Voices with the liner listing around 100 voices trained by Simon Halsey and Julian Wilkins. The two chorus masters have a done tremendous job with the singing alert and responsive, vibrant with exciting attack or melting warmth as required. Add to that a fine quartet of soloists led by soprano Carolyn Sampson fully up to the quasi-operatic drama of her part and you can see that the performing side of this recording is in fine fettle. But another important element is the actual recording and production. Symphony Hall Birmingham is a well-known and admired performing and recording venue but engineer Phil Rowlands and producer Andrew Keener have created an aural space that has the richness and sense of space this type of work requires. Lastly the balances achieved with such large performing groups is likewise excellent right down to the solo quartet being integrated into the choir and orchestra so that their parts are always present but never synthetically dominant … I am not sure when I have enjoyed the actual performance of a work of this type more in recent times … a great deal of the credit for this must go both to the choir trainers but also to Martyn Brabbins who once again proves himself to be especially adept at handling large-scale and complex scores. I would think that even the infamously hard to please Stanford would be grudgingly delighted with such an involving and impressive performance’ (MusicWeb International)

‘Their sound is so intensely beautiful, perfectly tuned and resonanced: the way the vocal lines unfold in Byrd’s Mass for five voices, and the way they control the final flowering of the Agnus Dei, is beautiful to hear, quietly ecstatic. It’s a well-made programme—you get the movements of the Mass interwoven with Byrd’s motets and it makes an excellent four hundredth anniversary for him’ (BBC Record Review)

‘There’s some brilliant playing, and surprises as well—he can’t resist throwing in a ‘blues’ variation before the coda. The tonal range of four saxophones and piano can be startling, the way they imitate orchestral sounds and strings, with silky smoothness’ (BBC Record Review)

‘Esfahani is, of course, best known for his recordings of baroque music but he also has a keen interest in recent and contemporary works for his instrument. It is interesting to know that he has settled in Prague and this project has a personal significance for him, as he was the last pupil of Kalabis’ wife, Zuzana Růžičková. His enthusiasm for these works comes across clearly, and the chamber ensembles, drawn from members of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, support him well … the sleeve notes, by Esfahani, are helpful and the whole recording is clearly a labour of love and deserves strong support. There are other recordings of all these works but not in this programme. I hope Esfahani will go on to record other modern harpsichord concertos’ (MusicWeb International)