Sunday Times

Ave Maris Stella, written in 1975 for Davies’s ensemble the Fires of London, a mixed sextet, is one of his profoundest and most luminous works, taking inspiration from Beethoven’s late string quartets as well as from medieval plainsong, his habitual practice. The opening cello line memorably conjures up at once Beethoven’s C sharp minor quartet, Op 131, and the plainsong that gives Davies’s work its title. Fiercely difficult to play though the music is – and it is meant to be unconducted, like true chamber music – it comes over here with an idiomatic ease and brilliance that make the work seem truly classical. Vintage Max indeed. (FOUR STARS)

—Paul Driver