"Conductor David Hill found smiles in the Little Organ Mass by Haydn, that master of subtle wit. His choir's sopranos sounded as though butter wouldn't melt in the mischievous extended end of the Gloria – written, it is said, to annoy the Esterhazy Chapel clergy.
The Chorus were "tremendae" indeed in the Rex tremendae section, dynamic in Confutatis and brought a chilling sense of inexorability to Lacrymosa.
Few cities have one choral society of this quality – Leeds has two."
Yorkshire Post. Mozart, Requiem & Haydn, Little Organ Mass. 14 November 2009
"A Mozart piano concerto, a rarely performed Haydn Mass and Mozart’s Requiem drew a capacity audience for a concert that will go down as one of the season's finest.
Haydn's Miss Brevis in B Flat, generally known as the Little Organ Mass, opened the concert. Leeds Philharmonic Chorus's soft and poignantly sung Dona Nobis Pacem (Rest in Peace) seemed in perfect accord with the mood of Remembrance that has permeated the week. Mozart's stupendous setting of the Requiem Mass composed in the final weeks of his life and incomplete at the time of his death occupied the second half.
Full choir and orchestra, as distinct from the reduced forces for the Haydn, were now on stage together with Leeds City Organist Simon Lindley. This performance amply demonstrated that David Hill's declared intention to "take the Phil up a league" is much more than an empty promise.
All of the by now familiar hallmarks of this conductor were evident: rhythmic vitality, absolute clarity of orchestral and choral textures, excellent diction and perfect balance. There was an immediacy and directness about the singing which was breathtaking and the dynamic range from the softness of the Lacrymosa to the force and power of the closing Communio was astonishing. Soprano Sarah Fox, mezzo Sarah Fryer, tenor Timothy Robinson and bass Roderick Williams made up the excellent solo quartet in this great performance, a performance clearly from the heart."
Wharfedale & Airedale Observer. Mozart, Requiem & Haydn, Little Organ Mass. 14 November 2009
"David Hill, music director of Leeds Philharmonic Chorus, clearly in his element marshalling large forces, produced a wonderfully clear and coherent performance. With Hill at the helm, every detail is transparent, every strand of orchestral or choral texture carefully delineated. That is not to imply his performances - although invariably meticulously balanced - are somehow lacking soul or atmosphere. Far from it, his finely nuanced reading of A Mass of Life created an atmosphere of grandeur and mystery that it is hard to imagine being bettered."
Wharfedale & Airedale Observer. Delius, Mass of Life. 21 March 2009
"This venerable institution has had a spring in its collective step ever since David Hill was appointed as its music director. The choir now sounds younger and fresher, the blending and balancing of voices more refined.
A choir of some 130 voices might be substantially greater than the scale of forces nowadays favoured by many Bach interpreters but the tightness and discipline of this performance ensured that the larger body of singers did not compromise the clarity or flow of the work. Projection of the German text was excellent and Hill’s setting of tempi allowed his voices to colour their lines."
Wharfedale & Airedale Observer. Bach, Christmas Oratorio. 1 January 2009
"The combined sound was so regulated, that when it came, it was never overstretched into a braying frenzy, but remained both refined and sustainable.No struggle then to create the most thrilling crescendo....But there was also simplicity, the Agnus Dei taking on the mantle of a monastic plainsong, while in the concluding and extended Libera Me, the threat of damnation is all the more sinister for being whispered ...Rating: 9/10, Music to die for"
Liverpool Daily Echo. Verdi, Requiem. 27 September 2008
"Working together, backed by an enlarged orchestra, the breadth of experience of the massed choirs ensured the depth of expression and sustaining of power needed to make the cataclysmic zero tolerance of Verdi’s Day of Judgement (Dies Irae) both theatrically terrifying and musically terrific. That meant that the tumult, when it came, even gave the impression that there was resource and energy still held in reserve, ensuring that the sound never became coarse. Equally, when quiet and penitence were required, the choirs’ ability to produce a hushed accompaniment to the quartet of soloists was just as telling."
Huddersfield Examiner. Verdi, Requiem. 27 September 2008
"Leeds Philharmonic brought its refreshingly young sound along.... There was dynamic force for the big moments, but, in the hugely risky and complex double fugue at the Sanctus, this could have been a mere octet. And with the opening pianissimo – as well as the chanted Libera Me at the end of the piece – even a force this size showed, under Petrenko, that it could be sprightly and disciplined....I’ve heard this piece in venues worldwide by what have often been called the world’s best this or that. This Liverpool performance has got to be, for its sheer verve and dynamism as well as its spirituality, as good as it can get."
Liverpool Daily Post. Verdi, Requiem. 27 September 2008
"The undeniable zing of last Saturday's performance gave to it a freshness and spontaneity that was breathtaking. Opera North music director Richard Farnes secured from his massed forces crystalline clarity of orchestral and vocal textures. Every word of the text was delivered with directness and immediacy. The whole thing was infused with tremendous, unrestrained theatrical energy and rythmic vitality.... With advocacy such as this, Belshazzar's Feast seems destined to retain its status as one of the twentieth century's great choral masterpieces."
Wharfedale & Airedale Observer. Walton, Belshazzar's Feast. 6 September 2008
"Bring together the Leeds Festival and Philharmonic choruses augmented by the local St Peter's Singers, and you could only sit back and be thrilled at Walton's great choral showpiece. [The] tingle factor was in abundance from the choruses in a thrilling conclusion...."
Yorkshire Post. Walton, Belshazzar's Feast. 6 September 2008
"[Simon] Wright and his forces conveyed the grandeur and nobility of the Music Makers as vividly as they lifted the stabbing ferocity from the pages of Prokofiev's score. The Festival and Philharmonic Choruses were called upon to display their versatility in this most challenging of double bills even to the extent of learning and mastering a complex Russian text.
The choirs' attack was spine tingling and their declamation of the text riveting in its conviction and intensity."
Wharfedale & Airedale Observer. Elgar, Music Makers; Prokofiev, Alexander Nevsky. 22 May 2008
"When the Leeds Festival and Philharmonic Choruses come together, they form a choral group that would rival any in Europe, a fact that became abundantly clear in their performance of Elgar's The Music Makers.
Producing a gorgeous sound, the large male contingent balancing the robust quality of the well-focused sopranos."
Yorkshire Post. Elgar, Music Makers; Prokofiev, Alexander Nevsky. 23 May 2008
"David Hill, who manages to lead an astonishingly full professional musical schedule, is undoubtedly an inspiration to the Leeds Philharmonic Chorus whose musical director he became three years ago.
Their performance of John Rutter's Requiem, in which Leeds Girls' High School's choir participated, reflected in every detail of balance and dynamic shading an impressive commitment to a simple and beautiful gift to the choral repertoire."
Yorkshire Post. Rutter, Requiem. 20 February 2008
"Leeds Town Hall audiences are not best known for their empathy towards anything composed in the last 50 years, so that the prolonged ovation that greeted the choral work, Harmonium, by the American composer, John Adams, must have surprised and delighted the combined Leeds Festival and Philharmonic choruses.
It had been a brave venture with the technical demands obviously requiring much detailed rehearsal, while the fact that they were for long periods harmonically contrasting with the orchestra was a severe test of their intonation.
They emerged wonderfully secure, unscathed and triumphant, the work's long, quiet ending as absorbing as the many passages that required a shiver of excitement to race through the music.
Culture, Yorkshire Post Today. Adams, Harmonium. 12 May 2006
"...This concert marked David Hill's first appearance as 'the Phils' music director; a post he occupies concurrently with the music directorships of the Bach Choir and St John's College Cambridge. The members of his Leeds Choir are going to have a very fruitful relationship with their new conductor. This was abundantly clear to those of us who were able to witness the sheer pleasure on Hill's face at the crisp and wounderfully expressive singing that he coaxed from his choir and the splendid Sheffield Philharmonics Chorus... The airy textures in the Requiems most well-known number, the consoling 'How loverly are thy dwellings fair' were a revelation. So too were the looks of enjoyment on the faces of the choirs as they sang it
Ilkley Gazette. Brahms, Ein Deutsches Requiem. May 2005
"...the best sounds of all emerged from the choirs the Leeds and Sheffield Philharmonic Choruses singing with that soft, comforting tone ..."
The Times. Mahler, Resurrection Symphony. April 2005.
"The chorus [created] the tingle factor, launching into the Chorus of Demons
with suitable venom and pulling out all the stops as they came to that moment of crowning glory in Praise to the Holiest in the Height."
Yorkshire Post. Elgar, The Dream of Gerontius. March 2004.
"The Leeds chorus made a most impressive sound, exemplary in attack and quality of diction. The strain on sopranos is notorious in this work, but here they stuck to their task and were unstinting in the fortissimo passages."
Yorkshire Post. Beethoven, Missa Solemnis. November 2003.
"This performance contained power and introspection... a meaningful performance, full of integrity" Pärt,
The Guardian. Berlioz, Te Deum. September 2003.
"Tingling with atmosphere ... as natural as breathing"
Daily Telegraph. Verdi, Requiem. May 2003.
"[In the Requiem Aeternam] The Leeds Philharmonic Chorus ... produced a refined texture. The Dies Irae, by contrast, was a terrifying blaze."
The Guardian. Verdi, Requiem. May 2003.
"We have never heard the Leeds Philharmonic ... in finer voice ... this concert was one we were all deeply privileged to attend"
Yorkshire Post. Mahler, Symphony No. 2. December 2001.
Yorkshire Post. Walton, Belshazzar's Feast. March 2001.
