Church Times

Andrew Nethsingha directed as his swansong a rip-roaring reading of Mahler’s Eighth, the “Symphony of a Thousand”.

David Cheetham

It may be vast – it may be difficult – but this symphony exactly suits our festival chorus. The choir’s work at the festival had been carefully planned to lead up to this final over-the-top outburst. A lot of the vocal writing is multichoral, with soloists, boys’ choir and choruses singing together over a loud orchestra.

“Williams's performance was never less than first rate” – Roderick Dunnett

David Cheetham

When you have recitalists of such ability and such easy charm as Roderick and Iain, there is no question about whether their performance will be faultless and whether the audience will go away contented – of course they will.

musicweb-international.com

This was a splendid and very faithful account of an underrated masterpiece. Coming just a few days after War Requiem it was very good to hear a contrasting but no less effective and eloquent musical testimony to the wastage of war.