Tallis: In manus tuas

“A thrilling large scale performance” CD Review

“Never before has Spem in alium, Tallis's great 40-part motet, so closely resembled The Last Judgement as it does in this vast and awesome performance” Gramophone Magazine

“This outstanding release … features absolutely ravishing performances by Stile Antico… This is an extraordinary recording: In its debut on Harmonia Mundi Stile Antico has given choral music lovers everywhere a reason to celebrate what looks like the beginning of another beautiful relationship!” Classics Today 10/10

“The singing is staggeringly beautiful, the balance meticulous.” Sunday Times

“Debut recordings rarely come as impressive as this sequence of 16th-century English music for the evening service that concluded the daily monastic round of prayer. It suggests that Stile Antico have a future as bright as their pure and crystalline soprano sound, which is heard to special advantage in the pieces by John Sheppard, the most lavishly represented composer on the disc.” The Telegraph

“The Tallis Scholars produce a distilled, transparent sound and the spiritual tone of their performance is one of serene contemplation through which the Requiem's ecstatic 'external light' shines.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2005 *****

“This, the third volume of the survey by The Tallis Scholars of the music of the Tudor composer, Thomas Tallis, contains the well-known Lamentations, eight motets, and the extended motet Salve intemerata virgo. The Lamentations and motets are typical of the style of late Renaissance English composers. The overall mood is one of considerable austerity and their simplicity is indicative of the probability of their having been written for the private use of loyal Catholics rather than for formal ritual. Salve intemeratavirgo, on the other hand, looks back to the glories of the late 15th century. In particular, Tallis's use of the phrygian mode gives the work as a whole a strong sense of the medieval. Despite this disparity of styles the Tallis Scholars acquit themselves, as always, with great distinction. In the Lamentations and motets they achieve an appropriate sense of intimacy, while in Salve intermerata virgo they rise fully to the challenges of one of the more extended and demanding examples of Tudor choral composition. In addition the formidable challenges which this latter work sets for the conductor, such as the sense of pace, variation of dynamics, and overall architecture of the work, are all extremely well handled by Peter Phillips.
The recording is very fine.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Another success for Jeremy Summerly's Oxford Camerata.” BBC Music Magazine

“Contrasts abound: Byrd’s florid three-section Tribue Domine is almost Marian in its vastness, while Tallis’s hymn setting O nata lux de lumine is brevity itself...The dozen singers perform expressively and blend beautifully throughout, while Skinner, who adopts a commonsense approach to pitch standards, injects passion into every note.” Sunday Times, 30th January 2011 ****

“They use solo voices throughout, mixed voices with a fairly open sound that brings with it more vibrato than we are used to hearing in such music nowadays...That results in performances that are refreshingly free of self-indulgence. Some of the big Byrd pieces in particular are very good indeed.” Gramophone Magazine, March 2011

“The prevailing mood is penitential, but the pieces are never dull; there's much delight to be had in listening to the way the individual voice parts weave in and out...Skinner gets his singers to bring [the false relations] out so that they send shivers down your spine...[He] shapes the music extremely well.” Classic FM Magazine, March 2011 ****

“Homophonic passages impress with their splendour, enriched here by the chestnut hues of basses William Gaunt and Robert Macdonald. The clarity of line lays bare the ingenuity of counterpoint, no matter how thick the texture becomes - a formidable achievement in Byrd's 'double imitation' motets.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2011 ***

“This is the first time the Cantiones Sacrae has been recorded complete and 'in the original order intended by the composers themselves'...An auspicious beginning to a mighty undertaking.” International Record Review, May 2011