There’s some talent in this choir – the men are better than the women – but the overall sound can be woolly and standoffish, without a final degree of engagement with the text. Norwegian and German should induce a different approach to annunciation and shift the surface feel of the music as a result, but don’t here. The hazy sound of the wordless To be Sung of a Summer Night on the Water understandably suits the group best but the bugle effects in The splendour falls on castle walls sound like something out of Monty Python.

There’s a wonderful resonance to Midsummer Song, the final Delius work, with its trochaic ‘wall of sound’. Into the Bax the choir raise their game in response to more complex music; they negotiate the slippery chromaticism of I sing of a maiden impressively. But, again, declamatory phrases like ‘Saint Basil, since you go to school / recite your alphabet to show us’ (from Five Greek Folk Songs) need to be delivered on the front foot, not as if at a Sunday evensong, and the choir’s blend is frustratingly unsettled.

Parris demonstrates his ability to plot a long and complicated work in the monolithic Mater ora filium – to Bax what Take him, earth, for cherishing is to Howells – but the soprano tone collapses horribly at the end of the big chord at 5'22", and again when that same chord, thickened up, returns to close the piece.