The tone is wonderfully varied and evocative, especially the rich drone of the Orthodox chant. The women’s voices are pure but warm. The unnamed solo cantors are fluent and secure. Any lover of late-medieval music should find this an absolute delight. Add Lingas’s erudite notes, the sizable bibliography, the authoritative editions, and the superb engineering, and this release becomes indispensable

The singing is impressive and the liturgical character of the chants selected for this disc comes off convincingly.

Saturate yourself in either for about an hour and then switch for another hour, and you’ll swear they are the most disparate genres ever. … Cappella Romana is at its sterling best

Their unanimity of attack and fastidious approach to dynamic contrasts are just two hallmarks of an outstanding achievement. Hats off, too, to Preston Smith and Steve Barnett for their superb engineering and production. …the finest advocacy from these fine musicians. This is definitely a disc to savour

One of the big choral rediscoveries of recent years combined with a stunning performance and recording, Steinberg’s sublime and eloquently moving Passion Week is a work to which I’ve returned again and again this year

Passion Week is a profoundly moving composition… This is a unique and beautiful recording, one that deserves to be discovered and loved by many.

The disc, the ensemble’s 20th, was recorded in Stanford University’s Memorial Church, a space of subtle resonance that allows the music to float on a halo of sound without ever becoming hazy. The singers of Cappella Romana…sustain the long phrases with remarkable finesse and breath control, including those intrepid basses, who appear to possess endless reserves of air.

an eloquent brilliance, singing with tremendous relish, as though this obscure masterpiece had been in their repertory for years …the finest advocacy from these fine musicians. This is definitely a disc to savour

Maximilian Steinberg’s Passion Week is a major work which deserves to be better known. … Alexander Lingas and Capella Romana are to be congratulated on their scholarship in recovering the work, and their fine recording

Alexander Lingas, in collaboration with Ioannis Arvanitis, is fortunate in being able to reify his archival researches into Medieval Byzantine chant by means of Cappella Romana's fine musical skills and their recording team

The power of this stunning performance is that it simultaneously brings to life a masterpiece in whose sounds you can bathe with eternal opulence, and also restores a liturgical and spiritual monument that deserves a permanent place and wide use in its intended context and beyond

‘Passion Week’…is on a scale with the great sacred works of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, though in a slightly more advanced idiom, and is quite simply beautiful.

an austere, inexorable, mesmerising Crucifixion liturgy told in the 8th-and-9th-century Byzantine chant that once resounded within Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre, leading the listener through Christ's final earthly journey

Recommended, with something of a lost treasure of Russian choral music

it is hard not feel that the work this group is doing is not only presenting music that has a veneer of inaccessibility in a way that releases its particular beauty but also allowing it to bloom and continue to evolve

Listening to this CD especially during this Holy Week (2015) has brought it all back and the helpful diagram of the basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in the booklet reminds me of the astounding church which dominates the area.

there is much to savor in the beautiful harmonies and soaring melodies. Cappella Romana does this sort of thing better than anyone, and there is literally nothing to criticize from a technical standpoint.

Passion Week is one of the finest and most moving Orthodox settings that I’ve encountered and I’ve been excited by getting to know it. It’s particularly pleasing that this music should receive its first recording from such a fine choir: Cappella Romana have done Steinberg proud.

It’s all beautifully sung by Cappella Romana, a Portland, Ore.-based professional choir. It provides a satisfying musical tour of the conclusion of the season of Lent

Once again Alexander Lingas and his intrepid crew provide sterling and gorgeously recorded music in exacting and beautifully defined performances