Walton: Missa Brevis

“Solti's Belshazzar's Feast is more symphonic than dramatic but monumentally impressive. Preston directs a useful anthology of short choral works.” BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2012 ****

“Decca have done it again, transferring this highly spectacular choral work [Belshazzar’s Feast] with incredible aplomb. The Coronation Te Deum is hardly less impressive, the choral sound richer textured to suit the occasion, and there is a great bass pedal effect near the end. … Solti has come to Belshazzar's Feast, a great British masterpiece, and in his refreshing way has given it a crisp, international look … It is certainly a most distinctive performance, sharply focused and helped by a recording of superb clarity and brilliance … Indeed the range and bite of the sound here is little short of miraculous” Gramophone Magazine (Belshazzar’s Feast, Coronation Te Deum)

“The disc thus gives a panorama of the composer's choral development over five decades … Preston has welded the choir into a most expressive and flexible instrument … The disc does credit to all concerned and will add lustre to the already high standard of Argo recordings in this field.” Gramophone Magazine (CD2: Choral works)

“Heather Harper’s singing … is a constant pleasure. Paul Hamburger, a first-rate accompanist who has appeared far too little on records, plays the quite demanding piano parts with great skill and sensitivity” Gramophone Magazine (Songs)

“After seven years at the helm, James O'Donnell has made a formidable singing outfit of the Westminster Abbey Choir...The treble line is robust and thrilling, its soloist, Jacob Ewens, a sinuous star in Britten's Te Deum in E. The ensemble is well balanced in the polyphony of Philips's Ascendit Deus and confidently tuned in the awe-filled modernism of Gowers's Viri Galilei, while the organist, Robert Quinney, does more than his share in the dazzling accompaniments.” The Times, 26th April 2008 ****

“The choir of Westminster Abbey under James O'Donnell sing with the happy care which his choristers at the Cathedral used to bring to their work with him. If the echo calls attention to itself at the start, the ears soon adjust. They are not going to complain with so much to enjoy.” Gramophone Magazine, June 2008

“The boys might be singing Stanford's Caelos ascendit hodie, but they could just as easily be trilling ''Woohoo! It's Ascension Day!'' I love such musical joie de vivre, and not every choir is able to produce it convincingly as these chaps...this is Westminster Abbey Choir at their crystalline best, with spot-on pitching, enviable articulation and sympathetic phrasing.” Charlotte Gardner, bbc.co.uk, 18th April 2008

“This disc has important bonuses that all Walton devotees will value. The inclusion of The Wallace Collection brings an immediate advantage in the first choral item, the Coronation Te Deum, when the extra bite of brass adds greatly to the impact of a piece originally designed for very large forces in Westminster Abbey. Brass also adds to the impact of the final item, Antiphon, one of Walton's very last works, setting George Herbert's hymn Let all the world in every cornersing. The new disc also includes Walton's four carols, which makes this as comprehensive a collection of Walton's shorter choral pieces as could be imagined. As for the performances and recording, the professional group, Polyphony, with sopranos very boyish, have many of the advantages that the St John's Choir offer on Naxos in bright choral sound set in an ecclesiastical atmosphere. The acoustic of Hereford Cathedral is a little washy in places, and the balance of some of the solo voices is odd at times, yet the merits of these performances far outweigh any slight reservations, with the professional singers a degree more warmly expressive than the all-male St John's Choir.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“This latest addition to Naxos's English Church Music series isn't just a first-rate bargain but provides a distinctive alternative to the Finzi Singers in the Chandos Walton Edition, in its use of boy trebles. The presence of boys' voices consistently brings extra freshness to the St John's Choir's performances, giving them the sort of bite one can imagine the composer having in mind, with Waltonian syncopations wonderfully idiomatic in their crisp articulation.
Smaller in scale, with the organ set behind the choir, these more intimate readings also convey more clearly the impression of church performances, a clear advantage in the liturgical items above all, not just the delightful Missa brevis, but the Jubilate, and the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis.
You might argue that this collegiate choir is on the small side for the big ceremonial Te Deum written for the Queen's Coronation in 1953, but there, more than ever, the freshness and bite make for extra clarity hard to achieve with bigger forces. With Robinson and the St John's Choir the words aren't just sharply defined but are given life, with subtle rubato and fine shading of dynamic.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“the Christ Church Choir sing with devotion and exquisite tonal blending. Ensuring careful regard for the sacred texts the reverential singing of the trebles radiates considerable vocal character. The singers seem buoyed by Walton’s music some of which was written specifically for the choir.” MusicWeb International, August 2012