'How often do you hear new music involving the theorbo? A relic of the Baroque, this versatile lute features in the captivating highlight of this new album ... Park’s work, to evocative texts by Georgia Way, is a hugely powerful centrepiece, sometimes Britten-like in its gaunt transparency, its folk allusions, and monumentally dramatic in the lengthy final song, Marietta. Carr throws in solo theorbo numbers by de Visée and Kapsberger. Charlston’s emotive mezzo is heroic throughout, lustrous and arresting'

'Charlston’s voice is distinctively bright-edged and clear, her words so finely projected and ‘felt’ that the booklet texts are hardly necessary to follow the drama of each item. She also has a rich lower register, and this combination of brightness and an enviably wide range makes a perfect match with the theorbo – a form of lute with an extended lower range and delicate, transparent tone more usually heard as part of a continuo group ... Park makes wonderful use of the surprising range of expression and tone offered by the voice-theorbo combination, and Charlston and Carr rise magnificently to the challenge, so that even when the music employs serial technique, it is thoroughly engaging ... Fine booklet notes by Jeremy Summerly, informed by quotes from the performers and Park, guide the listener through the programme, and the recording and presentation from Delphian Records do handsome justice to the performances themselves. In a year of many fine vocal recordings, this is one of the most outstanding we’ve yet heard'

'This album by the gloriously expressive, vocally utterly secure and dramatically aware mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston, in duo with Toby Carr’s theorbo, has to be seen already as a clear contender for vocal album of the year ... Something very special indeed is going on here ... The very best comes right at the end. Purcell’s “Evening Hymn” is sung as slow, as low, as dark, as warmly and as touchingly as you could ever wish to hear it. Listen to the diction and the understanding given to every single vocal syllable, the delicious pacing and the wonderful cumulative effect. And the last word of the song? Helen Charlston says: "The closing Hallelujah could be heard in so many different ways, but mainly it’s trying to find an answer to all of the questions that we’ve asked throughout the recording" ... . An exquisite anthology'

"There's such a beautiful, rich darkness to Helen Charlston's tone...."

BBC RADIO 3

'Helen Charlston and Toby Carr focus on the close relationship between voice and theorbo in their recital, scaling down several works to create the intimacy of a duet. Charlston's mezzo is as dark and full bodied as a good claret, and she offers highly expressive readings of the texts, plumbing their depths with glass-cut diction and a glorious range of colours ... wistful pieces, eloquentley played'