Cornyshe: Woefully arrayed

“The performances are second to none, rivetingly presented with all the skill of master musicians who have been doing this for years—the miracle is that they are all young, and yet still are able to penetrate the essence of these wonderful works. Need I say more?” Audiophile Audition, 31st October 2012 *****

“The McCabe piece...is beautifully tailored to the 12 voices of the choir. Although fiendishly difficult to perform, they manage it with superb poise and great dynamic sensitivity and projection. Clearly this is a group that can sing in tune, mantain its balance and enunciate words clearly.” BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2012 ****

“Stile Antico are probably at their best when the music invites them to sing out. The preference for a choral over a chamber music sound is clearly deliberate (as is the slow tempo adopted for the more solemn English pieces).” Gramophone Magazine, Janauary 2013

“The run-up to Christmas seems hardly the most propitious time to release an Easter-themed anthology of choral music, but regardless, Passion & Resurrection is to be welcomed both for its skilled execution, and for clever programming” The Independent, 3rd November 2012 ****

“Beautifully presented as always...Is the perfectly blended Stile Antico sound too uniform for all this varied music? The clarity of Taverner's Dum transisset is lovely, but Tomás Luis de Victoria's O vos omnes lacks some Spanish passion.” The Observer, 4th November 2012

“Cornysh's music is a riot of abundant, often seemingly wild melody, constantly in search of wanton, abstract, dare-devil ideas. Take, for example, the extraordinary conclusion to the five-part Magnificat, where pairs of voices are challenged with music of gradually increasing complexity, peaking in an exchange of quite hair-raising virtuosity between the sopranos – and all this just for the words 'and ever shall be, world without end'! As far as the sacred works are concerned, The Tallis Scholars respond magnificently to Cornysh's audacious imagination. Theirs is a majestic and glorious sound, to be relished in full in the Stabatmater, a huge piece that survives incomplete and for which the late Frank Harrison composed treble parts that may even trump Cornysh himself in their sheer bravura. Marginally less striking in The Tallis Scholars' performances are the short partsongs and the carol Woefully arrayed, robbed as they are here of some of their latent expressiveness and strength by being sung (admittedly very beautifully) in an inappropriately resonant building, and in rounded modern English vowels. But judged as a whole this disc must be reckoned an outstanding success.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Hillier turns the choir into a true theatre of voices, with some startling results.” BBC Music Magazine ****

“Few understand such music better than Paul Hillier, who has directed the 16-voiced Scandinavian choir Ars Nova since 2002. His approach to the Mass is brisk but flexible, with an admirable sense of the alternation of intensity and dissipation that inhabits this music.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2006 ****

“Taverner's Western Wynde Mass is often held up as one of the composer's masterpieces. Tempi are brisk, the projection of the lines energetic… In some of the fiercely demanding sections for reduced voices (the Benedictus, for example), the Danish singers are heard to strain but in the full sections they are as dynamic and outgoing as the music itself. As to the brief settings of the Kyrie (Leroy) and In pace with which the disc opens and closes, they show a more contemplative side to Taverner, to which Ars Nova respond most movingly.” Gramophone Magazine, November 2006