''In the first paragraph of his introductory notes, Harvey Sachs explains the disc’s origins, which lie in a programme devised for the 1997 Worldwide Days of Youth Festival in Paris, where the Pope celebrated Mass: ‘It moved so many listeners that a number of artists who took part in it agreed to participate in this new production.’ Ordered chronologically, the items are drawn from a wide survey of the centuries, the seventeenth to our own, representing the masters (Beethoven a notable absentee) and giving the last say to what might be called vox populi in the ‘inspirational’ (Harvey Sachs’s word) I Believe of Eric Levi (b.1955).I hope it has the success it deserves, which is no doubt a polite way of saying I don’t greatly like it. Never mind: it offers some fine music and calls upon a rich fund of talent in performance, with everything presented in a manner that tells of careful preparation. Chorus, orchestra and conductor take the largest share, with Cecilia Bartoli providing four of the solos, the other singers one each. All make an impact, whether gentle or impassioned, and all, I’m sure, will give pleasure.So wherefore the gripes? Perhaps better leave it that it is all a matter of taste, about which ancient wisdom assures us there is no disputing. More specifically, the slow is so slow and the fast is so fast, the loud is so loud and the soft is virtually inaudible. Bartoli sings as though wearing a halo, Terfel as though witnessing the Apocalypse; she seems indifferent to legato, he to steadiness of production. ‘Impact’: that’s what it’s all about. Andrea Bocelli is brought in at the end to make a more distinctively modern impact, crooning baritonally at one point, brandishing his high B fortissimo at another, the Credo of Eric Levi casting its inspirational glow over all.'' Gramophone