Membra Jesu nostri (1680) was probably a commission from Gustav Düben, the director of music at the Swedish Royal Court. Düben’s performance material suggests that it was never all performed on one occasion, but Buxtehude clearly conceived these seven short cantatas as a coherent single unit. The text is based on a paraphrased medieval Latin poem falsely attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux: each cantata is a penitent contemplation of a different part of the body of the crucified Christ, starting from the feet and working up to his face.

There are now more than a dozen recordings, including several released within the past few years. At least half are excellent, and the Montreal-based Les Voix Baroques take a position high up the league table. The five singers are all assured soloists who show consistent expressive flexibility and tenderness. They seem ideally suited to one another in five-part choruses and trios, and their finely balanced and sweetly sensitive approach to consort singing is a pleasure to listen to. There is subtle assertiveness in the communication of text (in which the instruments share an admirable matching role), and the result is rather like listening to an exquisitely subtle performance of Monteverdi madrigals.

On the whole, this lightly articulated performance does not have the expressive sonority and melancholic piety of the gorgeous version by the Netherlands Bach Society (Channel, 6/06) but, like The Sixteen’s exemplary account (Linn, 6/01), it allows the music and its meaning to unfold naturally with sincerity and taste. Outstanding recorded sound, an informative booklet-note and a sympathetic presentation devoid of gimmicks add to the all-round satisfaction of an enjoyable release.