Gabrieli Consort

“The recording sounds as sonically superb as ever.” MusicWeb International, 30th May 2013

“It is a veritable feast of early renaissance music, recorded at Douai Abbey in Berkshire...where the acoustics are ideal. Splendid book-style production, with evocative b&w photos. Recommended with enthusiasm.” Musical Pointers

“The occasional swish of incense dispersal or hand bell chimes are the only interior sound effects, enhancing the ceremonial atmosphere without impinging on the liturgical plainchant, florid organ voluntaries, majestic trumpet fanfares, opulent brass canzonas, and rich choral singing...An especial aural delight is the sumptuously rich lower brass of Andrea Gabrieli's Sanctus & Benedictus.” bbc.co.uk, 8th June 2012

“Even if you own the classic Virgin disc, this new version is a must-buy.” Sunday Times, 17th June 2012

“McCreesh's feel for the shifting colours of polychoral music was always firm but he finds extra variety here with greater use of solo voices - most memorably in Andrea's O sacrum convivium. The many who treasure that first recording should feel no need to discard it; but this second, with its new wisdoms and refinements, certainly has its place.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2012

“this is a marvellously handled recording conjuring up a 'live' event that is greatly aided by the opening bell-ringing and the ethereal spacious surround of the chanting. Musically the stars of the show are the works composed by the Gabrielis, uncle and son...Giovanni's Omnes gentes ends the show in magisterial form” BBC Music Magazine, September 2012 *****

“This is a more cinematic affair [than the first 'Venetian Coronation'], frosted with ambient sound as the bells ring out from St Mark’s Basilica. Shawms join the arsenal of natural brass. Toccatas and intonazione from four organs describe the gilded chapels, while the mass is sung with solo voices and a suave consort of cornetts and sackbutts. Pitch perfect.” The Independent, 23rd September 2012 *****

“This is a concept album, a sequence of purgative music on the theme of death by a wide range of British composers from the English Renaissance to today.” Sunday Times, 11th March 2012

“The singing is immaculate...MacMillan's music is as technically demanding as it is emotionally powerful and it is a a wonder that these exceptional young singers make it all sound so effortless.” Classic FM Magazine, April 2012 *****

“For me, the highlight is Herbert Howells’s Requiem, grief seeping from every cadence. It’s beautifully sung by Paul McCreesh’s Gabrieli Consort in an acoustic that sounds aptly like a tomb but is, in fact, Ely Cathedral.” The Times, 17th March 2012 ****

“Any disc subtitled 'Music of Mourning & Consolation' is not going to be a bundle of laughs. But Paul McCreesh has devised such a satisfying programme of mostly short a cappella pieces that the effect is the reverse of depressing.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2012

“there are numerous indications of the elevated artistry Paul McCreesh and the 22 singers of his Gabrieli Consort bring to this beautifully planned and executed programme...There's also much emotion in the performances. McCreesh's choice of sopranos who either have little vibrato or can eliminate it when requested has a palpable impact...This is a superlative, unmissable issue.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2012 *****

“as fine an account as I have ever heard...overwhelming in the great apocalyptic tuttis, but at the same time beautifully clear in detail, with a lovely bloom on the individual choral and instrumental lines of this paradoxically intimate work...[McCreesh] has a profound understanding of the score and has inspired his Anglo-Polish forces, above all the superb chorus, to feel it with him and take it to their hearts.” Sunday Times, 2nd October 2011

“McCreesh provides pretty much the enormous forces Berlioz demands...But he recognises that Berlioz sought more than mere noisy grandeur, and the results are fascinating. McCreesh's pace is fairly slow and weighty, but it seldom feels slack. In the reverberant acoustic of Mary Magdalene, Wroclaw, textures remain open....Even those used to the Colin Davis or Charles Munch tradition may find its airy beauties compelling.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2011 *****

“I’d turn to this performance most for its gentler qualities: like the loveliness of the Wroclaw Philharmonic Choir; or the quiet corners of the final sections, when rest eternal beckons and the instruments’ individual colours rise to the fore. Robert Murray, the tenor soloist, wafts down nicely from on high.” The Times, 14th October 2011 ***

“an interpretation that is impressive not merely by dint of the music’s more monumental statements or its ample sonorities, but also through the subtlety of expression that Paul McCreesh elicits from the massive forces required to perform it.” The Telegraph, 13th October 2011 *****

“The result is clear-textured and austere, even where the decibel count is extreme in the Dies Irae...McCreesh keeps it all on a tight rein, but the chief glory is the choral singing, superb in its fervour and weight, with the difficult tenor line notably strong and ecstatic.” The Guardian, 13th October 2011 ****

“Berlioz's 1837 Grande Messe has rarely sounded so thrilling or transparent...the muted plangency and expressivity of [McCreesh's] female semi-chorus in the "Sanctus" is every bit as impactful as the rolling waves of timpani in the "Tuba Mirum", while the snaking coils of strings have an otherworldly, Gothic flavour.” The Independent on Sunday, 23rd October 2011

“McCreesh has achieved something quite out of the ordinary in this performance...The impact is overwhelming, not merely in the full-throated eruptions...The concept of Berlioz's Requiem Mass may embrace a certain element of grandiosity but, listening to this performance, it is impossible to forget that Berlioz was a supreme orchestrator and a composer with a broad dramatic talent.” Gramophone Magazine, November 2011

“terrific singing and an uncommonly corporate involvement in the ritual of music-making” Classic FM Magazine, December 2011 *****

“well recorded in a suitably reverberant acoustic, it sounds stunning...this is a definitive recording of a staggering piece.” The Arts Desk, 12th November 2011

“A triumph of performance and scholarship” MusicWeb International, May 2012

“[The Allegri] is one of the highlights, the 1970 recording by the Choir of King's College, Cambridge achieving an almost weightless sublimity, particularly in the Sanctus. The Taverner Consort of the 1980s offers similarly impressive interpretations of Giovanni Gabrieli's polychoral pieces” The Independent, 25th November 2011

“The sheer magnificence of the choruses that provide the oratorio's structural pillars has rarely been so effectively realised on disc. McCreesh also has an exceptional set of soloists. The results are exceptional; overtaking even John Eliot Gardiner's striking version on the same label.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2008 *****

“While yielding to none in joyous exhilaration, McCreesh gives full value to the mystery and awe of creation. Unlike most period practitioners, he often favours broad tempos, whether in a wonderfully creepy evocation of the primeval slime in "Chaos" or the most majestic of sunrises... If you want a Creation in English, this new version - sonically thrilling, marvellously sung and characterised - sweeps the field.” The Telegraph, March 2008

“In all the choruses McCreesh's pacing - eager but never hectic - and rhythmic energy are wonderfully inspiriting. He is acutely responsive, too, to the work's mystery and awe… The less consistently cast Rattle recording sometimes generates more fun. but for a Creation in English, this new version - exhilarating, poetic and marvellously sung - becomes the prime recommendation.” Gramophone Magazine, March 2008

“ceived The Creation as the first bilingual oratorio and would surely have been perplexed that Anglophone record-buyers seem to prefer the work in German. The main problem, of course, is that the Baron's command of English failed to match his self-confidence, prompting many attempts to improve on the original.
On this new recording, Paul McCreesh's emendations are less radical than those on the two other available versions in English (from Simon Rattle and Robert Shaw), but on the whole more successful, retaining all the Miltoninspired quaintness of van Swieten's text while rectifying his mistranslations and clumsy Germanic word order.
Language apart, McCreesh's recording differs from its period competitors in scale: where they typically use a smallish professional choir and an orchestra of around 50, McCreesh pits a 113- strong band against a chorus of similar numbers.
Abetted by the glowing, spacious acoustics of Watford Town Hall, the big celebratory choruses make a more powerful impact than in any of the rival period versions. Occasionally – say in the rollicking fugue in 'Awake the harp', here done at a constant fortissimo – one would have welcomed more nuanced dynamics. But there is no denying the incandescence of the climaxes to 'The heavens are telling' and the final 'Praise the Lord, uplift your voices'.
In all the choruses McCreesh's pacing – eager but never hectic – and rhythmic energy are wonderfully inspiriting. He is acutely responsive, too, to the work's mystery and awe, daring, and vindicating, slower-than-usual tempi for 'Chaos' (launched by the most apocalyptic of timpani rolls), the Sunrise and the first morning in Paradise, celestially evoked by the Gabrieli's trio of flutes. A pity, though, that he allows the cannonfire timpani to pre-empt Haydn's cosmic blaze at 'light'.
McCreesh's trump card is his solo team, superb both individually and as an exceptionally sensitive ensemble. Has the trio near the close of Part 2, 'On thee each living soul awaits', ever been sung with such radiant inwardness. Other highlights include Sandrine Piau's graceful, smiling 'With verdure clad', here a truly happy song to the spring, Mark Padmore's tender legato in Haydn's portrayal of the first woman, and Neal Davies's deep, velvet softness in 'the limpid brook' and his hieratic reverence in the sublime arioso 'Be fruitful all, and multiply'.
Peter Harvey, supple and lyrical, and Miah Persson, with a touch of sensuousness in her vernal tone, are beautifully paired as Adam and Eve.
For a Creation in English, this new version – exhilarating, poetic and marvellously sung – becomes the prime recommendation.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Right from the first notes the sheer scale of the drama is apparent, you feel the full force of order emerging from chaos and light from darkness...bass Neal Davies is particularly impressive as Raphael...If you're after The Creation in English, this might just be the one to buy…and the recording captures the whole spectacle with apparent ease, which is an achievement in itself.” Andrew McGregor, bbc.co.uk, 18th April 2008

“This is a remarkable recording. In some ways it's like a rediscovery, for here's an approach not too far from Pro Cantione Antiqua at its best and yet that group never recorded the work. The Gabrieli Consort adds chant to the Requiem Mass itself, thus creating more of a context for Victoria's magisterial work.
We have therefore the Epistle and preceding prayer, the Tract, Sequence, Gospel, Preface, Lord's Prayer and Postcommunion in addition to the polyphony; this also means, for example, that the Kyrie is sung nine-fold with alternating chant instead of simply three-fold only in polyphony.
We can presume that the chant was taken from a suitable Spanish source by Luis Lozano Virumbrales, who's an expert in this field and the author of the insert-notes together with Paul McCreesh.
The performance itself is stately and imposing, with a tremendous homogeneity of sound: the use of an all-male choir, together with the added chant, lends it a tangibly monastic feel, though it would have been a fortunate monastery indeed that had falsettists of this quality. About the performance of the chant there are two points of interest: first, that it's doubled, like the polyphony, by a shawm, common Spanish practice at this period, and second, that McCreesh isn't afraid to have the falsettists singing the chant too.
The pace of the polyphony often seems unhurried, but never feels slow, and Westminster Cathedral Choir is faced with the hugely reverberant acoustics of its home building. From the beginning the singing is involving and incarnate, but the real magic comes nearer the end: from the Agnus Dei onwards one feels that the Gabrieli Consort have really got the measure of the music and is allowing it to speak through them. The final great responsory, the 'Libera me', is performed with heart stopping power and conviction.
McCreesh's approach shows how the Mass would have fitted into and complemented the liturgical framework without ever losing its own internal power and drama. A revelatory disc.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010