Pärt: I am the true vine

“There's little of the balletic brilliance that Pärt displayed in such works as the Stabat Mater or Tabula Rasa, and mercifully as little of the thunderous severity of his Passio mode. Instead there's a quiet and cumulative power to these works, given performances of luminous purity by Polyphony and Stephen Layton.” Matthew Shorter, bbc.co.uk, 1st September 2003

“The choir’s pursuit of perfection ideally complements the sheer beauty of the music” Classic FM Magazine

“A triumph … sublime, ethereal beauty” Gramophone Magazine

“The singing on this disc is little short of stunning” The Telegraph

"No living composer draws more meaning from key religious texts, and these particular performances honour ärt's intentions with consummate musicianship." Gramophone

“Meurig Bowen's notes observe that choral pieces composed in the 1990s suggested Pärt was moving into 'more complex, exotic harmonic territory'.
Some of his music began to give a glimpse of what was described as 'an attractively post- Minimalist aspect' of the composer's recent work.
All rather premature, perhaps, since, as Bowen acknowledges, Pärt subsequently returned to a more strictly diatonic, triadic approach.
Even so, the staccato, carol-like episodes bracketing Dopo La Vittoria, commissioned in 1991 and delivered in 1997, come as a shock, but the bulk of the piece is more recognisably by Pärt, and the Nunc dimittis, with its lovely, lambent solo part for soprano Elin Thomas, evoking Allegri's Miserere, assuages all doubts.
The idea of Pärt setting Burns might surprise, but My heart's in the Highlands, with its serene, Pachelbel-like organ line and pellucid vocal by countertenor David James, is a triumph. In the hymn-like Littlemore Tractus and Salve Regina, warm melodies and bursts of colourful chords mellow Pärt's sound without detracting from its sublime, ethereal beauty. Polyphony's performance is gorgeous.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

"No living composer draws more meaning from key religious texts, and these particular performances honour art's intentions with consummate musicianship...An essential addition to Arvo Pärt's ever-growing discography." Rob Cowan, Gramophone

“It's not difficult to tell the two composers apart stylistically, but their similar spirit, sense of reverence and pristine vision make them perfect musical partners. Made in Amsterdam's Waalse Kirk, this recording gives an excellent impression of space and airiness, and does full justice to the beautiful performance of the Choir.” BBC Music Magazine, February 2012 *****

“simply heavenly singing...On the grounds that you can't have too much of a good thing, I find no cause for complaint at this opportunity to hear the Palestrina twice in one setting...The singers, all 20 of them, produce a rich and wonderfully balanced sound, marvellous depth in the basses and a delectable fluidity in the sopranos. Truly this is a choir of great distinction.” Gramophone Magazine, January 2012

“…it's the purity of the Canadian Elora Festival Singers' sound that strikes the ear here. In Dopo la vittoria… the climax… has a radiance and a wonderful sense of gradual repose that is well worth waiting for.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2006 ****

“…the most recent piece here - the Nunc dimittis (2001), commissioned for St Mary's Episcopal Church in Edinburgh and seen by some as an inevitable if long-delayed response to Part's Magnificat (1989) - still displays his characteristic purity of sound and austere methodology, which are realised with great sensitivity by the Elora Singers...This fine choir are fully in tune with Pärt's ripening music.” Gramophone Magazine, November 2006

“Schnittke's Choir Concerto is the major work here… As a stunning kind of evocation of all the Russian Orthodox church music one has ever heard, and yet masterfully composed with a powerful sense of architecture and inner logic, it's surely up there with Rachmaninov's Vespers. There is already an excellent recent version from the Holst Singers under Stephen Layton on Hyperion... But this new BIS version, it is has more recorded resonance, also exudes greater warmth - it's a refulgently passionate performance in which the Concerto emerges as simultaneously more ardent and more monumental, despite Tõnu Kalijuste's relatively faster tempi.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2004 *****