Browne, J: Jesu, mercy, how may this be?

“We are, perhaps, in a wood-panelled Elizabethan hall, where in the early 17th century the family of a large house gather for their private prayer. Voices and viols mix in harmony, ranging from the familiar simplicity of Thomas Campion's "Never weather-beaten sail" to the elaborate verse anthem by Orlando Gibbons's "See, see the word is incarnate"...Another triumph” The Observer, 29th January 2012

“The beautifully blended voices of Stile Antico give this music with all the intensity that its emotional content merits. But then every work here fairly burns itself on the heart.” Sunday Times, 12th February 2012

“the performances are wonderfully fresh, revelling in the harmonic false relations and affectingly attentive to the import of the words.” The Telegraph, 18th February 2012 *****

“a varied treasure trove of seldom heard but extremely affecting music, nicely sung and spliced together with some darkly-glittering string In Nomines played by Fretwork...[They] easily persuade us that there is such a thing as beautiful simplicity.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2012 ****

“Stile Antico's sleek tuning and supple attention to words, and the studio recording, intimate but not claustrophobic, do bring a carefully plotted span (over 120 years) of sacred styles into our listening rooms with rare success.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2012

“another winner from the 12-voice ensemble Stile Antico... The two pieces by Thomas Tomkins, O praise the Lord and When David heard, epitomise the expressive richness of the style. But the simplicity of Campion’s Never weather-beaten sail is also gorgeous, and there’s an unexpected rocking figure, John Browne’s much earlier Jesu, mercy, how may this be?, that becomes a real earworm. The contributions of the viol consort Fretwork are equally fine” Irish Times, 20th April 2012 *****

“The group's singing is, as ever, breathtakingly beautiful” Classical Music, 2nd June 2012 ****

“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

"Wonderful music, wonderfully performed ... sit back and let these glorious sounds fill your ears and lift your spirits" The Gramophone