‘…nearly 20 years since its premiere, Anthony Payne’s elaboration of Elgar’s sketches for the Third Symphony remains musically and emotionally satisfying – a fusion of scholarship and imagination that allows the composer’s draft ideas to leave the page and enter the repertoire’
Alexandra Coghlan, The Arts Desk, 23 August 2017 on ‘Elgar/Payne: Symphony No. 3‘ BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall, London, 22 August 2017. BBC Symphony Orchestra; Sakari Oramo, conductor‘As with Elgar, Payne here proves the perfect amanuensis, capturing Vaughan Williams’s early mature orchestral voice to a tee.’ James A Altena in Fanfare Issue 40:3 (Jan/Feb 2017) on ‘Vaughan Williams: Discoveries’ CD Albion ALBCD028
‘Payne is also the masterful orchestrator of the four songs on texts by Ursula Vaughan Williams, written between 1954 and 1958, the year of Vaughan Williams’s death. … In these orchestral versions, Payne gives them nostalgic, autumnal colorations, as Strauss employs in his, though very much in the style of the English composer’s later works. The result is to heighten the poignancy of the lovely settings.’
Ronald E Grames in Fanfare Issue 40:3 (Jan/Feb 2017) on ‘Vaughan Williams: Discoveries’ CD Albion ALBCD028
‘Discoveries don’t come much more rewarding than Vaughan Williams’s Three Nocturnes’ … Now Anthony Payne has orchestrated the remaining two – and a marvellous job he has done, too, bringing out every adventurous facet of this often astonishingly forward-looking music with its pre-echoes of A London Symphony, Sancta civitas and (especially) A Pastoral Symphony. Payne’s consummate understanding of the idiom is also evident in the deeply touching Four Last Songs (to words by RVW’s wife, Ursula), where he skilfully incorporates orchestral techniques employed in the Sinfonia Antartica and questing Ninth Symphony.’
Andrew Aschenbach in Gramophone, November 2016 on ‘Vaughan Williams: Discoveries’ CD Albion ALBCD028
‘Payne has been extremely skilful in his orchestrations…..The orchestration is wonderful; sample the marvellously atmospheric orchestral conclusion after the singer has finished…. The orchestral opening, with its memorable horn solo, could come right out of the pages of the ‘London’ or ‘Pastoral’ symphonies, especially as presented in the informed and sensitive Payne scoring.’
John Quinn in Musicweb International, November 2016 on ‘Vaughan Williams: Discoveries’ CD Albion ALBCD028
‘a seamless sequence of land-, sea- and skyscapes, a beautifully crafted and paced “symphony of illusions”’
The Guardian on ‘Of Land, Sea and Sky‘ BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall, London, 26 July 2016. BBC Symphony Orchestra; BBC Symphony Chorus; Sir Andrew Davis, conductor
‘music of evocative indeterminacy, carefully shaded in washes of orchestral colour’
The Independent on ‘Of Land, Sea and Sky‘ BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall, London, 26 July 2016. BBC Symphony Orchestra; BBC Symphony Chorus; Sir Andrew Davies, conductor
‘Payne’s quiet but thoughtful presence in British music always strikes me as a kind of anchorage in sanity, confirming the continuing life of trusted values.’
The Independent on Sunday
‘…an English gentleness with dissonance… not cowed by sweeping thematic gestures – a striking first commission from London Sinfonietta – and long overdue.’
The Independent on ‘Windows on Eternity’ Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London. London Sinfonietta; Oliver Knussen, conductor
‘…the impression it leaves is of a single idea sustaining a whole 18-minute movement with gratifying effectiveness’
The Guardian on ‘Windows on Eternity’ Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London. London Sinfonietta; Oliver Knussen, conductor
‘Harmonically consistent, devoid of gimmickry and masterfully scored, Payne’s 20-minute tone poem is never short on atmosphere.’
The Telegraph on ‘The Period of Cosmographie’ Bridgewater Hall, Manchester. BBC Philharmonic Orchestra; Gianandrea Noseda, conductor
‘Cast in a single movement, it works its material with the same seamless consistency and abstract potency as a Sibelius symphony, and communicates the same satisfying idea of a musical journey, underpinned by academic rigour and crowned with a sense of quiet completion… His tutors are the classical masters, principally Haydn and Beethoven, and like them he doesn’t waste a note.’
Andrew Page, The Financial Times on Second String Quartet, King’s Place, London. Allegri Quartet
‘Payne’s deep knowledge and love of the Elgar style… have enabled him to ‘elaborate’ the sketches with a skill and a fidelity to the original that take the breath away… The result is convincingly ambivalent, utterly Elgarian and deeply moving… Payne’s labour of love was … a triumph for all concerned, and a landmark in the history of British music.’
Barry Millington, The Times on Elgar/Payne: Symphony No. 3
‘This was, in short, music making at its most engaging, and the enthusiastic and protracted applause created the distinct impression that the audience was, like me, somewhat reluctant to leave the auditorium.’
Seen and Heard International, on Piano Quartet
‘… it is that English Romantic way of thinking about melodic line, expressive harmony and instrumental colour – and above all, creating haunting musical atmosphere, which shines through’
Stephen Johnson, Gramophone on ‘My Own Country’ (Warlock, arr. Payne)
‘The World’s Winter’ marks Payne’s reconciliation of the modernist aesthetic with the late Romanticism that inspired him in his youth. The result is riveting… The gorgeous Horn Trio from 2006 completes a fascinating collection’
BBC Music Magazine, October 2013