"...Quite aside from the quality of the music, the performances given here by the Scottish Chamber and Philharmonia Orchestras are absolutely superb, responding as best they could to maxwell Davies’s cold cruelties."

 

Lynn René Bayley - Fanfare - January/February 2013

 

"...both Symphonies present the composer in a very different light to frothier, melodic works by which he is more universally known, such as Mavis in Las Vegas, An Orkney Wedding with Sunrise or Farewell to Stromness. As in much of Maxwell Davies’s more substantial works, no one is going to be bowled over by an abundance of melody or dancy rhythms, but nor is the composer an unapproachable modernist, and for muscular vividness and multi-textured eloquence, this pair is hard to beat. The Fifth in particular, with its greater cut and thrust - and volume! - is probably the most accessible entry point into the composer’s Symphonies.Given their intimate knowledge of the respective scores, the SCO and Philharmonia’s accounts of these works under their progenitor must be considered benchmarks, and there is nothing in these fairly immaculate recordings to start off any debate. Sound quality in both cases is good - the best of the bunch so far, in fact..."

 

Byzantion - MusicWeb-International.com - 23 November 2012