We read that Johannes Verhulst (1816-91) was a pupil of Mendelssohn, but that much is self-evident from this extended setting of the Mass. Composed in 1879 for the Golden Jubilee of the Netherlands’ Foundation of the Promotion of Music, Verhulst’s Mass was, according to Ton Braas’ and Leo Samama’s splendid booklet notes, the longest sacred choral work written up to that time by a Dutch composer. Certainly with its wealth of charming melodies, elegant orchestral accompaniments and lavish writing for chorus, it gives us a fair idea of what Mendelssohn himself might have come up with had he ever written a Mass on this scale.

The eighth in a series of discs exploring Dutch music of the past 200 years marking next year’s centenary of the Residentie Orchestra, it has to be said that the focus here is, both musically and so far as the recorded sound is concerned, very much on the 15-year-old 100-voice Netherlands Concert Choir. While they sing with great clarity and precision, there is a somewhat lightweight quality about their sound which undermines the climaxes, not least the potentially thrilling moment of resurrection described in the Credo. Nevertheless, Matthias Bamert’s taut reading draws some particularly impressive dynamic control from them, especially in the highly-charged opening section of the Sanctus. It is left to the excellent quartet of soloists, however, to produce the most captivating music-making here. Supported by gracious obbligato solo cello and clarinet, their performance of the charming Benedictus is a moment of pure delight.