The flickering lamp of history sheds an unflattering light on Gombert, who was banished to the high seas after raping a (choir?)boy in the service of Charles V. It was in that disgrace (Jeremy Summerly’s notes for Naxos retail) that he set the classic Biblical text of lamentation in exile, ‘By the rivers of Babylon’, with a range of power and expression hardly matched by music of his or any other era. The Oxford Camerata’s four basses are as one in charting the murky bass-line (at 1’00”) that rocks the harmony above.

This music calls for and generally gets one voice per part in modern recordings. I would not disagree with Fabrice Fitch that a pair of Hyperion discs showed the sadly defunct Henry’s Eight to be ‘worthy champions’ of Gombert, but that’s no reason why larger ensembles should not enjoy performing and recording him, as Oxford Camerata demonstrate. Whether it’s youthful exuberance or Gombert’s clotted textures I’m not sure, but their forceful approach combined with a very steady tactus could become too much of a good thing; I wouldn’t listen to the disc all at once. Some tired soprano moments and tenors pushing the throttle in the Magnificat suggest that they are working even harder than Gombert asks them to.

The Hilliards, of course, offer a quite different experience: immaculate intonation, floated and seamlessly tapered phrases and a clarity of texture that can wring even more from the piles of suspended dissonance. They work hard, too: Gombert is not another Renaissance chillout zone. Like Super flumina, Media vita in morte sumus is a gloomy setting of a dark text, with a major-key conclusion that only twists the knife.

This is one of the few works on both discs, and it illustrates the differences between them. The Camerata wield a broadsword, the Hilliards a dagger. Both are powerful executioners. If I choose the Naxos disc over the ECM one, it is for a selection of works that is more varied and offers more consistent examples of Gombert’s genius. Good though it is to have the Media vita Mass associated with the motet, the Ordinary of the Mass does not seem to inspire Gombert to so individual a response as the motet texts, such as that which opens the Naxos disc, Tulerunt Dominum: ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have put him’.

Perhaps most touching of all is Musae Jovis, his tribute on the death of Josquin, which concludes both discs. Descending lines that ache of the grave are lulled to rest by Gombert’s remembrance of his teacher. Ars Nova under Bo Holten find an ideal balance between present pain and future serenity. There is more of the former about the Oxford Camerata and more of the latter about the Hilliards, but Gombert does very well by all three.