‘Another exemplary addition to Handley's absorbing Bantock series … hearty thanks to all involved in this enterprising labour of love’ (Gramophone)

‘The finest large symphonic recordings of the decade. The burnished colors of Bantock's singular music—moody, quirky, haunting—glow under the direction of Vernon Handley’ (Financial Times)

‘Just as good as its predecessors. Roundly recommended’ (Fanfare, USA)

‘Outstanding. A sumptuous wallow for all unashamed Romantics … full marks, Hyperion—now we can all wallow once more. Worth the price for the sumptuous sound alone!’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘Hyperion's third collection of orchestral works by Sir Granville Bantock, a composer who rivalled Elgar in his day, is quite simply superb’ (The Scotsman)

‘Handley and his orchestra perform with absolute conviction, and it is difficult to a imagine a more impassioned case being made for it. Hyperion offers superb notes by Lewis Foreman and complete texts. The rich, warm recording is an added plus, with its natural perspective and soundstage. For those who enjoy exploring the byways of Romanticism, this is highly recommended’ (Fanfare, USA)

‘The performances are outstanding. Canadian baritone Finley is in top form, showing total command of his voice with stunning hushed singing and ringing top notes. Drake is his reliable accompanist … everything about this recording is terrific’ (American Record Guide)

‘Finley’s best work … this disc has an admirable program … Finley makes a firm and pleasing sound and he can command the nuances when necessary … Julius Drake’s accompaniments strike me as right and are a pleasure to hear’ (Fanfare, USA)

‘Hearing the Hermit Songs in a man's voice, this man's voice, is little short of a revelation … there's a world of feeling in these 10 songs, and Finley, accompanied throughout by pianist Julius Drake in a way that would make Barber proud, burrows deeply into every niche … I held my breath before 'Sure on this shining night', my favorite Barber song of all, an ecstatic setting of a rapturous James Agee poem that's harder to bring off than its simple, swelling lines would suggest. Finley hit it out of the park’ (Bay Area Reporter, USA)

‘[Finley's] warm timbre, technical facility, fluid, natural phrasing, and conscientious expression brings an easy, unforced clarity to the texts, ideally characterizing each song without distracting mannerisms or undue dramatic inflections … it would be hard to imagine performances more purely beautiful, sensitive, and true to the music and poetry than Finley's’ (Classics Today)

‘The indefatigable Gerald Finley, who makes even the most straight-laced song shine … Julius Drake is his ever percipient partner, while the strings of the Aronowitz Ensemble provide an atmospheric backing for the most famous of these songs, Dover Beach’ (The Daily Telegraph)

‘Baritone Gerald Finley and pianist Julius Drake follow their outstanding disc of songs by Charles Ives with a collection devoted to a very different American composer. Samuel Barber's particularly personal brand of romanticism seems so natural and unforced, it's unnecessary to attach the prefix 'neo-' to it. Barber's gifts for elegant, melodic writing and his own early experiences as a singer (he once contemplated a career as a baritone) made him a natural songwriter, and two of the works here—the 10 settings of medieval Irish texts that make up his Hermit Songs Op 29, and the magically rapt version of Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach—are among his finest achievements in any genre. The Mélodies Passagères, composed in the early 1950s for Pierre Bernac and Francis Poulenc, are a homage to French song; three other settings of James Joyce and some of Barber's songs to American texts are also included. Finley is a wonderfully persuasive advocate for all these songs, and shows that the best of them rank among the greatest of the 20th century’ (The Guardian)