A distinguished team of soloists has been assembled for this issue: it was recorded in 1991 and 1993 in no fewer than five different venues, and in some items I have reservations about the accompaniments. Garben is often too loud when the piano doubles the vocal line or has penny-plain repeated chords, and greater care was needed in the Canon at the fifth not to swamp the low-lying underpart; elsewhere he is less obtrusive, though he does not sound in the least harplike in L'origine de la harpe. In the men's duets Aler is rather obviously the lighter of the two voices, but their unanimity is excellent: individually, Allen is sincerity itself in the heartfelt devotion of Je crois en vous, and Aler, though essentially a lyrical singer (admirably so in Le jeune patre Breton), can rise to the intensity of Le maure jaloux, Adieu Bessy and the Elegie (which Berlioz himself categorized as ''immensely difficult to sing and to accompany''). The duetting of the two ladies is beautifully matched (for example, in Sara la baigneuse), with carefully graded dynamics. On her own Pollet, fresh and bright as is her voice, sometimes makes one conscious of the throb in it. But the real star of the discs is von Otter: more exquisite shading of tonal colour (La belle voyageuse), more passion (La captive), more touching sensitivity (La mort d'Ophelie) one could scarcely ask. The discs are worth getting for her alone; but all Berliozians will want the whole set."

- Lionel Salter, Gramophone [7/1994]