"The beauty of the piece, for tenor and string quartet, is its restraint. It doesn't sensationalise, get maudlin, moralise or politicise. The words are direct and the music respects that. The performance does, too: clear, focused playing from the Sacconi Quartet and lucid, unswerving narrative from tenor Mark Padmore ... Pianist Charles Owen joins for the Piano Quintet, intense and light-filled".