MIDWEST RECORD:
Here's a sterling chance to be the first on your block.  Bailey is a contemporary classical composer now getting the first commercial release on her works, delightfully played by this ensemble.  She writes with a deft precision giving you the feeling that she really considers each note before putting it to paper.  It's not laden with a schoolmarm type precision so don't expect  any nuns to pop out of the disc and whack you with a ruler if you find yourself tapping your toes along to the music.  With a feel that's distinctly Great British as opposed to Germanic or Roman, Bailey sonically paints her pictures with an emotional core that shows real heartbeats pumping along.
Chris Spector

MUSICWEB (1):
The Cornish composer Judith Bailey is succinct in her music. You would know that if she ever wrote a sixty minute symphony every note would count. There would be no ullage. Going by these works she is also of a serious bent yet with a light heart.

The String Quartet is the earliest work here - some twenty years old. It's a densely grave weave of sound with each line of singing intensity occasionally suggesting early Tippett. The effect is husky and warm and the redolences are of a consort of viols. This is relieved by a pizzicato episode in the finale.

It was commissioned by the Davey String Quartet, following the death of the composer's mother in 1986. Their first performance took place in Kentish Town, London on instruments which were all made by luthiers. The three movements are headed by literary quotations: I. "Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent" (from The Bridge of Love ; an Anthology of Hope , collected by Elizabeth Basset); II. "We are what suns and winds and waters make us" (W.S. Landor); III. Those who spread their sails in the right way to the winds of the earth will always find themselves borne by a current towards the open seas (Teilhard de Chardin). The latter author is of interest given the Rubbra connection mentioned later. Rubbra's Eighth Symphony is entitled Hommage à Teilhard de Chardin .

The 1993 Clarinet Quintet was also written for the Daveys and strikes me as more of a suite of three contrasted movements. The first has the rearing strength of the Bax and Alwyn clarinet sonatas. The second laps sweetly and the finale is a woozy-zany song. It's very attractive and should find a ready place in chamber recitals.

From the same year comes the carillon-fractured Towers of San Gimignano . It traces its origins from the composer's visit to Tuscany in 1993. The three segments are: 1. The Towers of San Gimignano: “There are fourteen of them, built in rivalry by warlike nobles in Mediæval times. As one approaches the hill-top city of San Gimignano the towers stand majestically silhouetted against the skyline.” 2. Frescoes and 3. Piazza: “A sunny square thronging with people. A man is singing - it echoes through the arches and towers beyond. The free three-notes repeated motif was made by bells heard on Easter Sunday morning. Bells are never far away in Italy.”

The work that is The Egloshayle Nightingale Trio is in four movements which look back to the string quartet but here the textures are more open and folksong invigorates and seduces the listener. The bluffer moments are offset by a heartfelt second movement. If the first and final movements do sport a phrase that recalls Yorkshire rather than Bodmin this remains a tender and vulnerable work. It was written for Tony Cox and his Mainly Baroque Trio based in Egloshayle in Cornwall. The Cornish folk-song The Sweet Nightingale is the basis of the work. It was premiered in South Harting, near Petersfield.

The Aquamarine Waltz is intended to have marine view connotations although it seemed more pastoral-homely to me. The two Microminiature pieces are each in three concise movements variously reflective-unrepentant and glintingly eager. The first and second movements of No. 2 recall the Quartet while the finale is more unbuttoned and carefree.

The Visions of Hildegard takes a fragment of a piece by Hildegard von Bingen and meditates upon it. The drone effect at 0.50 and other aspects later imply the medieval connection in a work that has a strongly serious bearing perhaps reminding the listener of Rubbra's music for chamber orchestra. Light is in three movements. Again this is a gravely beautiful piece which should make it endearing to admirers of Rubbra's chamber music. The four movements carry superscriptions from St John of the Cross, Browning, Bridges and Anon. The music and the words saturate each other in the crepuscular and the valedictory. Also we encounter a new mood in Silent Silver Lights - a flash of anger. This music has more angularity than you might have expected from the other works apart from The Towers of San Gimignano .

The Davey Ensemble are accorded a powerful close-up sound. There was only one momentary player slip which could have been edited out and that falls in the second movement of Light . It causes no harm to the progress of the music.

The presentation has something of the Dunelm design feel marking the recent transition of that label into the Divine Arts Metier line. I am sure that Judith Bailey must be grateful to Patrick Waller who made this album happen and to the Davey Ensemble whose expertise and caring dedication has released this music to the listening world.

I hope that this disc, quite apart from its intrinsic pleasures, will be the harbinger of recordings of Bailey's Concerto for Orchestra , Cliff Walk Symphony , the two numbered symphonies, the Clarinet Concerto and her other string quartet.
Rob Barnett

MUSICWEB (2):
I was given this disc for appraisal by MusicWeb's very own Patrick Waller, whose sponsorship enabled this production to take place. This happened over a very nice lunch, at which some colourful descriptions of the recording circumstances were recounted. Considering the freezing conditions at that time – of the recording, not the lunch – it was apparently something of a miracle the whole thing came together at all, and with a substantial quantity of material recorded in a relatively short period my congratulations go to all concerned for seeing the project through to completion. In this way I would also like to declare any bias which readers may feel they encounter in this review.

Rob Barnett has already reviewed this disc and supplied much of the background one might need on the composer and her work. Everything with this release is very well presented: the composer's own notes on each piece giving plenty of useful and relevant information. It is interesting to see that the works are programmed in chronological order, and so one has a sense of ongoing growth and development. The three movements of the String Quartet are headed by literary quotations which express some of the musical content, including the rather plangent quality of which was no doubt coloured by the death of the composer's mother a year previously. Gently expressive lines weave through each other in both the opening Adagio and the central Fugue , but the final Moderato (Rondo) has a more robust centre, expressing the positive message in the quotation “Those who spread their sails in the right way to the winds of the earth will always find themselves borne by a current towards the open seas.” Tonal orientation is not always easy to find in the sometimes quite intricate patterns in this piece, a problem which occasionally seems to fox the players as it may the listener at times. The journey taken is however one which always ends on an entirely logical resolution, one which ties each musical strand with the firmness of an aglet.

While the String Quartet is in no way ‘difficult' music, the Clarinet Quintet has a superficially more immediate appeal in some of the more lyrical writing, for instance in the gentle central Siciliano and the quirkily humorous Allegretto scherzando finale. Judith Bailey's own instrument is the clarinet, and she clearly knows how to obtain the best from its width of registers. The Towers of San Gimignano has a programmatic content, being written as a response to a visit to Tuscany. The solo piano chimes a powerful peal of bells, also expressive of imposing medieval towers. The strong material in an implacably imposing first movement is subjugated into the detail of the Frescoes found in the second, but is never too far away. A busy Piazza rounds the piece off in fine style, with some local singing, and an echo of the bells heard in the opening. This is an excellent piece, with some evidence of the influence of Debussy in the response to all those images.

With the Egloshayle Nightingale Trio we are given a suite in baroque form, based on the Cornish folk-song The Sweet Nightingale . This is appealing, quite light music, with more rhythmic bounce than the String Quartet , although there is a gorgeous slow Sarabande which has the sense of a slow funereal march. Another work in lighter mood but with a softer, introspective kernel is the Aquamarine Waltz , written for the composer's long-term friend Isabel Young's 75 th birthday. When you've heard the piece and find yourself whistling the tune, you realise how close it is to a sea shanty.

The two short Microminiature pieces were in response to a commission for works of three minutes' duration intended for amateur musicians. There is something about having to work within a compact framework which concentrates the creative grey cells, and even though these performance go a little over time it is clear that Bailey relished the challenge of these miniatures. Both pieces have a slow central movement flanked by two quicker movements, and represent a kind of ‘essence of Bailey', sealed into succulent little jampots of fine music.

The Visions of Hildegard takes, as the title would lead one to expect, a theme by the Abbess Hildegard von Bingen. The short interludes which form a kind of set of variations on this theme are played as a sequence of medieval pieces would be performed, each section being a ‘breath', and giving the sense of a single continuous, meditative, and highly effective piece.

The final work on this disc is the grandest in scale. Light was written in memory of Isabel Young, and reflects on loss, and the search for recovery of one's self in the discovery and knowledge that those we love remain with us in spirit. There is a clear sense of anguish expressed in the music which, having become acquainted with the composer's idiom through the course of the programme, has quite a shocking power despite its Mozartean restraint. Longing, sadness, desolation – all of these things appear in a score which is often quite sparse, the expression of the deepest emotions coming through with the simplest economy of means. As with the String Quartet , each movement is given a quotation which concentrates the mind and clarifies the messages in the music, concluding with “Replace the darkness within me with a gentle light.”

I have to be honest and say that the recording quality for this disc could have been better. The String Quartet sounds rather thin and flat as does the piano; and the balance between clarinet and upper strings in the Quintet lead one to wonder where the clarinet was placed – poor Jane Plessner sometimes sounds as if she has been banished onto the sidelines, even while appreciating the chamber rather than solo nature of her part. The lighter textures of the Trio fare a little better, and as ever with this kind of thing one's ear does become tuned in to the overall sound after a while. I don't want to be too harsh, but I am used to hearing more satisfying results – and I don't mean just from the big name labels. With cheaper playback equipment you probably won't notice so many problems, and it sounds fine on the built-in speakers on my laptop. This said, and with one or two mild moans over intonation here and there, this is a well-performed programme of some highly intriguing music. I have to admit to not having heard of Judith Bailey before receiving this disc, and have to declare that this must be as good a way as any to introduce oneself to her music. Dominy Clements

  MUSICWEB (3):
Judith Bailey was born in Cornwall in 1941. Her instrumental music occupies an important place in her musical output and is given the platform it deserves in this release. The works are set out chronologically so we can start with the earliest, the 1987 String Quartet and end with Light, her Op.76, written in 2004.

The Quartet is written in three brief movements. It's tightly argued and the first movement has the feel, at least, of baroque affinities and is grave of utterance but flows freely, remaining unresolved at the end. The central movement is fugal, the density of which is banished by a gutsy free wheeling finale full of spirit. The Clarinet Quintet (1993) is another three movement, even more compact work. The first is good humoured and concise, almost cheeky at points, whilst the finale is a perambulatory affair, with a brief moment of reflection on balance overshadowed by the jaunty confidence of the writing. At eight minutes in total it certainly doesn't prolong things unnecessarily.

The Towers of San Gimignano for solo piano followed in 1993. The first movement is a bell chime study – at first elusively so, and then the bell chimes become progressively more audible the more the piece develops (and the ‘nearer' pictorially speaking the composer-auditor gets to them). There is a grand efflorescence then more limpid sounds. The second movement is Frescoes – rich and redolent tracery; the Piazza finale features the kind of jaunty stuff that ended the Clarinet Quintet – a chirpy song alternating with chordal power.

From a solo piano work to the Egloshayle Nightingale Trio for violin, viola and cello. Cast in baroque-sounding movements this embraces the folkloric, utilising that lovely song The Sweet Nightingale - you might remember it from Deller's recording. Sweetly sunny and vivacious. Aquamarine Waltz for cello and piano is pleasant; the Microminiatures left a lesser impression – nevertheless they're quietly intense with spirited finales. Visions of Hildegard is a series of variations or ‘breaths' reflectively and with cumulative weight becoming more and more moving - a lovely piece of music. Finally there is Light ; a serious minded, reflective but intense work for piano trio. Though it has moments of outburst it ends in affirmative and consolatory resolve.

The performers are strong advocates for Bailey's music and they've been recorded in quite a pleasingly up-front sort of way. This is a fine and stimulating conspectus of Judith Bailey's chamber music.
Jonathan Woolf