‘Music of exhilarating inspiration, superbly performed. A recording as near as may be to the ideal … a very remarkable recording indeed. For audiophile and music-lovers, this is essential’ (Hi-Fi News)
‘This music is already familiar from other recordings of Venetian vespers, yet these are magisterial performances, the Christmas setting giving them an appropriately festive focus’ (Early Music)
‘One of the glories of the new disc is the gloriously full-toned and marvelously projected singing of his two sopranos, Carolyn Sampson and Rebecca Outram … A further distinct plus is Hyperion's superb engineering, which presents the performances with glowing, yet sharply defined immediacy’ (Fanfare, USA)
‘This is life-enhancing stuff, breathtakingly exciting at times, exquisitely beautiful at others. If King and his forces maintain the standard they set here, this series is surely set to be the definitive representation of Monteverdi on disc’ (BBC Music Magazine)
‘The King's Consort shows complete affinity with both the dramatic and the lyrical aspects of Monteverdi's style. No ensemble could be better suited to this magnificent undertaking’ (The Daily Telegraph)
«En effet, c'est avec un tact et une finesse sans précédent que King mène son corpus instrumental … la douceur séraphique de Sampson et Outram dans le Venite, Siccientes n'a d'équivalent que la parfaite maîrise de la diction, des sons enflés et de la souplesse de ces voix» (Classica, France)
‘This is an absolutely crack team of soloists, all of whom are completely at home in Monteverdi's idiom. The tenors in particular luxuriate in the ornamental roulades’ (Early Music)
‘Where this new disc really comes into its own is in the small-scale motets, where King's outstanding roster of soloists would be exceedingly difficult to better … The rarely performed motets alone should ensure the present disc its place in any Monteverdi collection, while John Whenham's notes prove as valuable an asset as those Michael Talbot provided for King's Vivaldi sacred music traversal’ (Fanfare, USA)
‘I'll say it straight out: the result is truly exciting! The music is magnificent, and so is the interpretation … the architecture of the programme is particularly remarkable, and the album is built on balance, variety, contrast’ (Goldberg)
