One of the charms of this Purcell garland is the way Marlow explores the tonal potential of his singers, hardening and rounding voices as the music demands.

"It is a staggering fact", Peter le Huray's note tells us, "that, apart from the funeral anthem Thou knowest, Lord, Henry Purcell had composed every piece that is recorded here by the time he had reached his twenty-fifth birthday." What a time it must have been when the Chapel Royal establishment was furnished with so many brilliant young people, fired with the adventure of restocking the service lists with music after the 15 years of the Commonwealth, when the Chapel had been disbanded. The patronage of Charles II is often mentioned in terms of his fondness for music which would make his foot tap. Much of the music here, one can only assume, was sung when he was elsewhere, since only four of the anthems would have found favour if the legend be true, and the feel of a collegiate sing-in is generally as strong as in the pre-Commonwealth church. Apart from Blow up the trumpet in Sion, the Jubilate, I will sing unto the Lord and Iwas glad we are in a world of deeply personal expression which does not exclude but does not need an audience. The anguished pleading of Remember not, Lord, our offences and Hear my prayer, 0 Lord belongs to the singers. Overhearing it, one can perceive only half its power. Even the awesome penitence of the Funeral Sentences, sung at Queen Mary's funeral and shortly after at the composer's, casts no net towards the congregation. The majesty of death in the presence of God is chillingly conveyed. That liturgical problem child Benedicite omnia opera stretches even Purcell's tolerance a little and his in-house setting is more fun to sing than to hear. This performance makes more sense of it than any I have heard.

One of the charms of this Purcell garland is the way Marlow explores the tonal potential of his singers, hardening and rounding voices as the music demands. One is tempted at first to miss the plaintive innocence of boys' voices, but I doubt if anyone could get much nearer Purcell's technical requirements than this. Those same sopranos who breathed the warm passion of Parry (reviewed above) are cooled and polished with ice cubes and the altos likewise (tenors and basses freeze in sympathy)—as in the final item, where every turn of the harmonic screw in Hear my prayer, O Lord is calculated to grip the heart. Even though this can only mean the most to those who sing it, no listener could fail to search his conscience as it is sung. My only complaint concerns the maddeningly unobtrusive organ parts, cooing so modestly. However, this is a small matter in so well conceived and so well executed a presentation, backed by first-class engineering.

– Gramophone [9/1987]