Even in more reflective vein, as with the gently swaying Ave verum corpus completed shortly before his death in 1992, Mathias seems to have an obsessive desire to maintain a driving momentum, which serves to give everything great life-enhancing energy. This is the most notable characteristic of these bright, invigorating performances from Graham Walker and St John’s Voices, the sister choir to the long-established Chapel Choir at St John’s College, Cambridge.

The personal connection St John’s College had with Mathias during the tenure of George Guest as director of music is celebrated here with a powerful and dramatically infused performance of a Welsh translation of verses from Psalm 19 (Y nefoedd sydd – ‘The heavens declare’), while a further Cambridge connection comes with an enthusiastic – sometimes, possibly, a little over-enthusiastic – performance of the evening canticles Mathias wrote in 1970 for Jesus College. The first of these is worked out rather more generously in the ecstatic A May Magnificat.

Nowhere is Mathias’s rhythmic vitality more exuberantly conveyed by these singers than in the five settings for female voices and piano duet (vivaciously played by Glen Dempsey and Aïda Lahlou) of poems by Edward Lear. Their tautness of ensemble, superb precision of pitch and extraordinary clarity of diction combine to make this performance of the previously un-recorded Learsongs of 1988 a matchless and hugely entertaining display of dazzling choral singing.

Also recorded for the first time is Riddles, a clever, light-hearted set of musical riddles based on Anglo-Saxon texts. Here St John’s Voices are joined by the Gentlemen of St John’s and the ensuing thickening of the choral sound, as well as the frequent emergence of various solo voices, provides a rich and at times uncharacteristically luxuriant texture. Mathias’s infectious musical humour is never far beneath the surface and everything is shot through with unstoppable, dancing rhythms.

A highly impressive debut disc which captures the essence of Mathias’s joyous musical personality.