Bruckner, Poulenc, Villette, Elgar, Perotin, Mendelssohn: none of these composers features on this recording but all are present in the drifting, magpie textures of Martin Lutz’s choral works. As a jazz pianist and composer, Lutz (b1974) has a clear identity which his first foray into classical music unfortunately lacks. Uncertain of his own musical personality or point of view, Lutz tries on many styles for size. Twenty-three tracks later, however, and he’s still no closer to finding his voice.

Themes of earthly and spiritual love unite an album that pairs a large-scale Stabat mater with other Marian antiphons and some Shakespeare settings. While the short Salve regina and Ave Maria are both sweetly inoffensive (the former opening with a big nod to Holst’s Nunc dimittis), the Stabat mater is more troubling – disregarding the violence and pain of its text to an almost wilful degree.

The work calls for soprano and tenor soloists, mixed choir, vibraphone, oboe and cello, an ensemble that clutters and confuses the ear, especially when solo instruments are placed so forward in the mix, relegating voices (and, crucially, text) to the background. The soft-focus, barely enunciated consonants of the Copenhagen Chamber Choir CAMERATA don’t help, and the whole impression is of a Pietà swathed in wadding and dust-sheets.

The Shakespeare settings and the rather attractive Hoc est corpus, hokus pokus are more successful but never move much beyond fairly generic prettiness. Without grit, there’s very little chance of a pearl, and nothing here comes even close to generating musical friction.