This is Chanticleer’s second disc of spirituals and gospel songs. The first was made in 1987 for their in-house label, and is considerably more refined than this newcomer. The singing on both is beautiful, to be sure; the all-male choir’s clear, bright tone is as finely blended as it would be in a Josquin Mass. But 15 years’ additional experience under Joseph Jennings’s watchful eye (and ear) has yielded greater rhythmic flexibility, a more natural spontaneity and increased intensity.

Mind you, this is still gospel music dressed up in black tie and tails. For all the fervour heard here – and the men are obviously putting their hearts and souls into these songs – we are securely in the concert hall rather than the church. The presence of Bishop Yvette A Flunder, an African-American minister and born-and-bred gospel singer, only heightens the distinction. In her solos, Flunder occasionally strains uncomfortably (most noticeably in Amazing Grace), but her voice shakes the rafters, and she bends pitches and stretches rhythms with that unique combination of sensuousness and zeal that gives gospel its true power. The soloists from the choir have angelic voices, but they sound stiff by comparison.

But with effective arrangements by Jennings, a programme that balances the contemplative and the rousing, and a marvellously vivid recording, there is still considerable pleasure to be had here. And I would imagine that for most readers, hearing gospel music in the concert hall is not that different from hearing Josquin in the concert hall, at least as far as authenticity is concerned.