Well over six hours long, this series now surpasses The Sixteen’s as the largest discographic survey ever devoted to the Eton Choirbook. The fifth volume has its share of gems: Hugh Kellyk’s seven-voice Gaude flore virginali, also included in the earlier series, is just as impressive here. The approach is more relaxed; and although the piece’s form is more easily grasped with Harry Christophers’s slightly crisper tempos, its dramatic touches are perhaps better staged here. For the upper parts of Browne’s O regina mundi clara Stephen Darlington opts for high tenors instead of the countertenors preferred in The Tallis Scholars’ recording. Occasionally the contrapuntal details aren’t quite as clear but the overall sound is more involving in the fully scored passages, and in the reduced sections the interplay of voices is beautifully handled.

I’ll keep saying so, but Browne really is peerless: next to him, Fayrfax’s well-known Magnificat ‘Regale’ is opulent but unsubtle. In fairness, Darlington’s tempos may contribute to that impression (I’ve commented on them before); they’re more decidedly a problem in Lambe’s setting of Gaude flore, in which the tempo chosen for the duple-time section robs the setting’s mensural intricacies of their effect and saps the singers’ certainty of purpose. Robert Hacomplaynt’s Salve regina sounds more confident, but whereas the quality of the music of Eton’s lesser-known figures has been a highlight of the set, I’m not so convinced by this (the reduced sections in particular lack direction). The closing invocations are effective and very nicely managed but it would be a pity for a series of such distinction to close on a comparatively tentative note.