Veni Domine : Advent & Christmas at the Sistine Chapel

"Presto disc of the week: Everything here is sung with extreme subtlety and a delicacy which rather confounded my expectations. Palombella (who, like all his predecessors in the role, is ordained in Holy Orders) clearly encourages his singers to eschew vocal grandstanding and approach the music in a spirit of reverence and devotion: it may take your ears a little while to adjust to the introspective quality of the music-making, but it's well worth the effort".

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"That every work on the disc is a true gem, a miniature masterpiece ... and that some of it has not been heard before outside the Sistine Chapel is an even more compelling reason to seek this disc out. And, if further inducement was needed, they have brought in no less a figure than Cecilia Bartoli to be the first female voice ever to be recorded alongside this all-male choir ... Bartoli's contribution is to Peronitus's Beata viscera Mariae Virginis. It may last less than four minutes of music, but it is four minutes of absolute sublimity ... A highly atmospheric celebration of music from the Vatican archives".

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"The Sistine Chapel Choir present ... Advent and Christmas music from the Vatican Library collection. Gregorian chant, Palestrina, Victoria, Allegri et al are recorded in the most evocative sacred space. Alas, an almost risibly ill-tempered performance, cheesy and queasy with excessive hairpins, is redeemed only partial by a guest appearance from Cecilia Bartoli, singing part of Perotin's Beata viscera with extraordinary grace".