Vaughan Williams: Valiant for Truth

“what impresses about this performance is the exceptional sense of shape, both in overview and in tiny details...This comes with a strong recommendation.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2010 *****

“there is nothing like having youth and intelligence on your side, and [Brown's] musicians, singers and players certainly support the freshness of their voices with the mental energy which so distinguishes the Cambridge School...this performance, lovingly moulded and well balanced...is in the best tradition.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2010

“Throughout this varied and contrasting programme the Clare College choir is on top form. Their discipline, tuning, intonation and balance are all beyond reproach and all the performances are full of sensitivity. All of this bespeaks scrupulous preparation. The choir makes the fresh sound of youthful and very well trained voices” MusicWeb International, February 2013

“A dramatic and intense reading from the choir which inspired the work's composition.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2006

“‘A stirring Vision of aeroplanes testifies to the choir’s extraordinary virtuosity which, under Baker, is clearly going from strength to strength … Hyperion has been making recordings in Westminster Cathedral almost since the day the company first came into being, and, as ever, the sound on this latest disc is gorgeous, full of depth, and with an ideal balance between, choir, organ and atmosphere” International Record Review

“This is an exceptionally powerful yet deeply moving account of the Fifth. Aided by glowing, wide-ranging engineering, Hickox's is an urgently communicative reading. The first and third movements in particular emerge with an effortless architectural splendour and rapt authority, the climaxes built and resolved with mastery.
The Scherzo is as good a place as any to sample the lustrous refinement of the LSO's response. Hickox ensures that the symphony's concluding bars positively glow with gentle ecstasy: here's a Fifth that can surely hold its own in the most exalted company.
Material from The Pilgrim's Progress made its way into the Fifth Symphony and two of the five enterprising couplings here provide further links with John Bunyan's timeless allegory: the 1940 motet for mixed voices with organ, Valiant-for-truth and John Churchill's 1953 arrangement for soprano and mixed chorus of Psalm 23 (originally sung by The Voice of a Bird in Act 4 of The Pilgrim's Progress). The latter receives its finely prepared recorded début on this occasion, as do both The Pilgrim Pavement (a 1934 processional for soprano, chorus and organ) and Helen Glatz's string-orchestra arrangement of the solo-piano Hymn-tune Prelude on 'Song 13' by Gibbons. Which just leaves the Prelude and Fugue, originally written for organ in 1921, but heard here in a sumptuous orchestration.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“This collection of mainly unaccompanied litanies and prayers will appeal far beyond the classical or Christian fold” Financial Times, 30th June 2012

“Blend, unanimity, dynamics: this CD is gratifyingly strong on the eternal verities of good choral singing...this imaginatively programme disc marks the Exultate Singers out as a choir to be reckoned with.” BBC Music Magazine, August 2012 ****

“The choir doesn't really have the force needed to raise the roof in the middle of the Rachmaninov, but this is a refreshingly straightforward reading that benefits from conductor David Ogden's refusal to take the piece too slowly...The recording is full and rich, beautifully balanced and clear, with an attractive church acoustic.” International Record Review, September 2012

“I've been consistently impressed by the work of Benjamin Nicholas and his Tewkesbury singers on the Delphian label ... the recorded sound is never short on detail thanks not least to the full-blooded singing of Tewkesbury's boy choristers and smart engineering. The choir's men are on top form too … compelling energy. Terrific choral listening.” Classic FM Magazine, April 2009

“Sung with real passion and conviction [Valiant for Truth] is, for me, the highlight of the disc. From time to time the organ pedal is apt to boom...but this does not detract from the splendid and generally well-balanced sound of the choir and the carefully chosen programme.” Gramophone Magazine, August 2010

“A characteristic of Brockless’s music is his use of perky, jagged and unpredictable rhythms which the Queen’s College choir clearly relish, producing some vivacious, incisive singing...there are some really enjoyable moments in the Britten Flower Songs and they summon up something quite magical for Jonathan Harvey’s I love the Lord.” Gramophone Magazine, March 2004

“The singers are on really top form, giving first-rate accounts of the challenging anthems by Jonathan Harvey whilst also making a case for more conventional fare such as the essentially tuneful pieces by Brockless. There is absolutely no fuzziness about the singing, the sopranos especially exuding a purity of line that will be the envy of many.” Organists Review, February 2004

“What is an apparently disparate programme of British choral music in fact works extremely well, and includes not a few revelations...Brian Brockless’s work is less well known than it deserves to be. Essentially traditional in idiom, it yet provides a series of technical challenges...and is strikingly memorable” International Record Review, October 2003