Stripping down the number of voices in Pärt has palpable benefits...Not that there's any sense of power missing: in the tutti of the Magnificat, the crescendos are ringing, and again one notes how cleanly the passing of musical narrative from part to part is realised with fewer voices.

the purity of The Tallis Scholars' sound provides the perfect scaffolding for the pieces on this disc...And in their performance...The Tallis Scholars have presented their chosen repertoire in the way they have always done best - as a sound world of profound beauty.

[From the opening bars] this disc of unaccompanied choral works from The Tallis Scholars and Peter Phillips announces itself as one of the great Pärt recordings…The Tallis Scholars display a profound consanguinity with Pärt's music: its immobility, its objectivity, its non-developmental aesthetic. Composer and interpreters could hardly be better matched…[this is] a disc of quite exceptional, at times heart-stopping, beauty. While there may be other Pärt recordings in this, his 80th birthday year, it is difficult to imagine there being a finer one than this.

I’ve heard several fine performances of [the Sieben Magnificat-Antiphonen] in the past but I fancy this present recording may well be the best I’ve ever experienced....these are absolutely outstanding performances. The singing is beyond reproach and the Tallis Scholars penetrate to the heart of Arvo Pärt’s music...I doubt that in the coming year there will be many tributes to Arvo Pärt that surpass the excellence of this one.

the Tallis Scholars bring their own unblemished radiance to this glowing music.

The forces are modest, just two voices to a part, perfect for spreading clarity and light. Purity of tone, perfect pitch, ensemble poise...For all Phillips’s iron control, these performances are never coldly correct. We know these are human beings singing...This is a gorgeous and inspiring album.