Staples is a young-sounding and affecting Gerontius…he uses his vulnerability to good effect…Wyn-Rogers sings with great feeling and intensity and an always vivid response to text…Hampson is hugely authoritative in his priestly exhortations…Barenboim’s Berlin choirs are both sensitive and impressive, and refreshingly true in intonation…So plenty to savour…I know I shall be returning to if often and with great pleasure.

A Gerontius of staggering power and terrible beauty...Barenboim’s reading plays up the work’s affinity to Parsifal, and even to the fire-and-brimstone sound-world of Verdi’s Requiem - the apocalyptic vision of God is the most terrifying and transcendent I’ve ever experienced...The sweetness of Staples' timbre doesn't preclude the strength needed for the work’s climactic moments.

a must-hear release thanks to his big-boned, romantic conducting and the magnificent playing and singing of his Berlin forces...this is Barenboim’s set, which places Gerontius as a mainstream European masterpiece.

The best parts of this recording are exactly those passages when this superb orchestra gives the impression of floating into celestial regions...Even when his pacing is unconvincing, there’s a gripping integrity and intensity to Barenboim’s approach...Barenboim’s account will takes its place alongside Elder’s (Hallé) and Britten’s (Decca) on my shelf marked “essential deathbed listening”.

Barenboim moulds every phrase lovingly but never cloyingly and secures orchestral playing of the very highest level, infused throughout with a burnished gold, especially in the strings. Hampson is imposing but never overstated, while Wyn-Rogers is both subtle and responsive; Staples’ lighter tenor works well too, clear and focused with both good diction and proper heft. Warm, natural recorded sound.