This impressive collection is the Monteverdi Choir going back, in a sense, to their roots, or even beyond them. One forgets, after so many years concentrating on the Baroque and later styles, that the origins of John Eliot Gardiner’s choir lie in earlier repertoire. They return to it here with gusto, illustrating their habitual superb choral blend, and a sense of pace and drama that the prize-strewn path of Bach and Mozart recordings has not in any way dampened.

Among the highlights are the taut rendition of Alonso Lobo’s monumental Lamentations and the blaze of glory that is the same composer’s Versa est in luctum, but Gardiner shows himself extremely sensitive to this late Iberian Renaissance style in general.

The only piece that actually has to do with the pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela is the earliest, the lovely Maria matrem from the Llibre Vermell. This is mainly an excuse to assemble a marvellous collection of Iberian polyphony from a rather later period, and the collection is outstanding and the programme well conceived. Recommended.