The Tallis Scholars
USA Tour March 2010
“It’s hard to imagine any deity resisting a plea sung as gorgeously as the Tallis Scholars’ rendition of the Kyrie, their voices swelling with soulful precision in the church’s resonant acoustics.”
The New York Times, March 2010
“As usual, the performance was a wonder.”
Ottawa Citizen, March 2010
“Phillips and his group had something in mind beyond curating a musical museum. They wanted to bring beauty to their interpretations, brushing off the dust of history and showing how splendid those antiques can sound.”
Pioneer Press, March 2010
“I could easily believe that the composers themselves never heard this works performed so well except in their own minds.”
Classical Music Guide Forums, March 2010
“The concert was magnificent and the scholars brought down a piece of heaven for our musical adoration.”
Last FM, March 2010
Victoria Lamentations of Jeremiah, released March 2010
“...intense, condensed and directly and darkly expressive.”
4 stars, The Times, March 2010
“Under Peter Phillips the pungency of the text is occasionally sacrificed to the beauty of the sound, but the balance is perfect and the recording (in Merton College chapel), is glorious.”
Nicholas Kenyon, The Observer, March 2010
“... what might be overly sparse and austere choral textures are embedded with a vivid sense of time and place that reveals the music to be a sequence of emotional cliff-hangers.”
4.5 stars, Classic FM Magazine, April 2010
“An outstanding release that celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of Gimell in the most distinguished manner possible.”
Record of the Month, International Record Review, March 2010
“These accounts have a plangent beauty, which is characterised by the lucent sound and faultless intonation that have been the defining strengths of the choir during the last four decades.”
4 stars, BBC Music Magazine, April 2010
USA Tour December 2009
“Amid an ever-expanding roster of outstanding Renaissance ensembles, the Tallis Scholars remains a force to be reckoned with.”
San Francisco Classical Voice
“The Tallis Scholars ... founded in 1973 by Peter Phillips, who still leads the group with graceful purpose, have long been celebrated as one of the greatest exponents of Renaissance polyphony. There was no call to question that assessment after Sunday’s concert.”
The Arts Blog
“The results were absolutely gorgeous. I don’t know when the Tallis Scholars will be in town next time, but you have to hear them. They are phenomenal.”
Oregon Music News
Naples, September 2009
“In a church in Naples, under Caravaggio’s Seven Acts of Mercy alter piece, The Tallis Scholars performed Allegri’s Miserere. It still makes me tingle to think of it.”
Mail Online, November 2009
Spitalfields Festival, June 2009
“Over 36 years, the personnel of Peter Phillips’s Tallis Scholars has necessarily varied: lives change; voices move on, sometimes to solo careers. But the quality of this cherished Renaissance music vocal ensemble hasn’t budged an inch. As soon as this all-English, early Tudor programme settled into the soaring lines of John Taverner’s Leroy Kyrie, bliss arrived. Perfect clarity. A blend finer than any coffee. Radiant and open expression, belying the singers’ appointed dress code: respectful black.”
The Times, June 2009
St George’s Bristol – April 2009
“They are a remarkable group, perfectly matched in tone and unfaltering in their intonation”
The Guardian, April 2009
Josquin: Missa Malheur me bat & Missa Fortuna desperata
“....this is one of the Tallis Scholars' finest recordings.”
Anna Picard, The Independent, February 2009
“one of the most beautiful discs ever recorded of Renaissance vocal polyphony, reaching not only summits of technical perfection (beauty and tuning of the lines, richness of harmonic cohesion) but also of expressive tension and commitment.”
“the expressive force of what this ensemble and their conductor draw out of Josquin's sweeping progressions takes one's breath away.”
Diapason (in which the disc was awarded a Diapason D’or)
USA Tour, March 2009
“These performers are about the most perfect ensemble there is to present this kind of music”
New York Law School (Leonard Link)
“In the world of choral music, it is difficult to find a group more highly respected than the Tallis Scholars”
The Boston Musical Intelligencer
BBC Proms – Royal Albert Hall, London
“The Tallis Scholars under conductor Peter Phillips sang these slow-moving, luminous masses with impeccable blend and balance. Did anybody care that the last tube had just gone half way through the “Benedictus”? This is music where time stands still.”
Financial Times, July 2008
BBC Proms – Royal Albert Hall, London
“Not just the choral event of the year but possibly of the decade.”
The Guardian, July 2007
"After seeing the Tallis Scholars, the Renaissance doesn’t seem remote at all."
Chicago Sun Times, August 2006
"The rock stars of Renaissance vocal music"
New York Times, April 2006
