'Emotionally direct one minute, bafflingly enigmatic the next, this majestic curiosity summons a chorus and solo baritone for 45 minute’s contemplation of the life and grisly suicide of the Italian baroque architect Francesco Borromini' (The Times)

'Maxwell Davies’s Tenth Symphony, premiered here, is put together with an unfailingly sure touch, and was beautifully and precisely presented by Pappano and the LSO' (The Guardian)

'A new symphony from Peter Maxwell Davies is bleak yet invigorating' (The Telegraph)

‘McCabe's music communicates with an expressive fervour that easily holds the listener in its thrall over nearly two hours. It's not just the superbly judged orchestration and wealth of memorable invention that impress. Above all, it's McCabe's ability to forge his tightly knit material into a dramatically convincing and organically coherent whole that marks him out as a composer of exceptional gifts … No raise can be too high for Barry Wordsworth's fluent, pungently theatrical direction, not to mention the unstinting application of the excellent Royal Ballet Sinfonia (which has well and truly assimilated McCabe's idiom into its bloodstream)’ (Gramophone)

‘Barry Wordsworth gets committed playing from the Royal Ballet Sinfonia … the best playing they have produced on disc to date. Notes are excellent, as is the recorded sound … a real winner’ (Fanfare, USA)

‘A fine performance and excellent presentation make this an essential issue for anybody interested in McCabe's music’ (Classic CD)

‘Stirringly dramatic, strikingly colourful … it is good to see McCabe's recent 60th birthday being marked by a number of fine new recordings. This could prove the most widely popular of them all’ (International Record Review)

‘A gripping score. This exciting recording of such a rich creation brings the atmosphere of the stage leaping out of the speakers’ (Birmingham Post)

‘A magnificent 60th-birthday offering to a fine composer … music of enormous integrity and genuine staying power from an underrated British master, impeccably realised on this occasion by artists and production crew alike. All in all, a very strong recommendation’ (Gramophone)

‘This is the finest disc yet of the music of John McCabe. Superb performances, vivid recording and ideal notes’ (The Guardian)

‘This disc offers the most satisfying glimpse yet of McCabe the composer. Excellent performances all round of two very rewarding works’ (The Scotsman)

‘It's hard to imagine a better advocate than the flautist Emily Beynon, such is the breathtaking spontaneity and imagination of her playing here’ (Gramophone)