John Taverner

“We are, perhaps, in a wood-panelled Elizabethan hall, where in the early 17th century the family of a large house gather for their private prayer. Voices and viols mix in harmony, ranging from the familiar simplicity of Thomas Campion's "Never weather-beaten sail" to the elaborate verse anthem by Orlando Gibbons's "See, see the word is incarnate"...Another triumph” The Observer, 29th January 2012

“The beautifully blended voices of Stile Antico give this music with all the intensity that its emotional content merits. But then every work here fairly burns itself on the heart.” Sunday Times, 12th February 2012

“the performances are wonderfully fresh, revelling in the harmonic false relations and affectingly attentive to the import of the words.” The Telegraph, 18th February 2012 *****

“a varied treasure trove of seldom heard but extremely affecting music, nicely sung and spliced together with some darkly-glittering string In Nomines played by Fretwork...[They] easily persuade us that there is such a thing as beautiful simplicity.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2012 ****

“Stile Antico's sleek tuning and supple attention to words, and the studio recording, intimate but not claustrophobic, do bring a carefully plotted span (over 120 years) of sacred styles into our listening rooms with rare success.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2012

“another winner from the 12-voice ensemble Stile Antico... The two pieces by Thomas Tomkins, O praise the Lord and When David heard, epitomise the expressive richness of the style. But the simplicity of Campion’s Never weather-beaten sail is also gorgeous, and there’s an unexpected rocking figure, John Browne’s much earlier Jesu, mercy, how may this be?, that becomes a real earworm. The contributions of the viol consort Fretwork are equally fine” Irish Times, 20th April 2012 *****

“The group's singing is, as ever, breathtakingly beautiful” Classical Music, 2nd June 2012 ****

“Surely the pick of the new CDs for Christmas this year, this exquisitely performed and beautifully planned disc is another winner for Stile Antico...what a sound: perfectly blended, carefully balanced, its sonorities reaching back effortlessly to conjure up a vanished age of devotion.” The Observer, 17th October 2010

“Stile Antico brings delicious balance and otherworldly beauty to this recording of music by Tallis, Taverner, Byrd, White and Sheppard. Listening will restore meaning to the holidays amid the retail onslaught.” New York Times, 26th November 2010

“Here is a disc full not of the joys but the mysteries of Christmas, the perfect corrective for the frenetic materialistic scramble it now is...The pure-sounding voices are exquisitely blended, and their broad pacing enables consistently shapely phrasing and clarity of line.” Sunday Times, 19th December 2010 ***

“Conductorless Stile Antico may be, but they could never be accused of lacking direction or clear-sighted commitment to the works on this generously-filled album...The approach encourages long-range thinking about the music, inviting the ear to contemplate soaring architecture rather than surface detail.” Classic FM Magazine, January 2011 *****

“The music marks the apogee of pre-Reformation florid polyphony and is endlessly fascinating, the compositional means clearly audible and sublimely transcended.” Sunday Times, 17th January 2010 ***

“The performances by the mixed choir of Edinburgh Cathedral are caught in a wonderfully vivid, close acoustic, so the beautifully elaborate polyphony seems all-embracing.” The Guardian, 21st January 2010 ***

“Treble voices surf high on huge waves of polyphony in the extraordinary Missa Corona Spinea, while smaller items display the same freshness, purity and liturgical glow. Duncan Ferguson, the Master of Music, is plainly a wizard” The Times, 5th February 2010 ****

“The second Agnus Dei is particularly memorable: these young singers' pleasure in their music-making is simply infectious.” Gramophone Magazine, March 2010

... enthralling - a glorious testimony to a golden age of music
BBC Music Magazine