Requiem for a Tribe Brother was written in 1992 for the Joyful Company of Singers and they deliver it here with conviction and a real depth of feeling (they did, after all, perform it at Williamson’s funeral a decade later). It is a lovely work full of lush harmonies and evocative soundscapes, revealing a profound personal sense not of loss but of joy in the memory of a young Aboriginal friend whose death inspired the work. Peter Broadbent and his singers relish the music, singing with understated emotion and, in so doing, bringing the real beauty of the score to the surface.

The other works predate Williamson’s appointment (in 1975) as Master of the Queen’s Music, and reveal a more acerbic but never less than inspired approach to the a cappella medium. The impressive five-movement Symphony for Voices is described in the booklet-notes as “one of the most astonishing works in the choral canon”. Astonishing it most certainly is, both in Williamson’s inventive use of the human voice to create quasi-orchestral textures and in its daring opening movement sung by a single alto; Kathryn Cook shows real authority and impressive vocal control.

For me, though, it is the suite from Williamson’s 1964 opera, derived from Edith Sitwell’s English Eccentrics, which is the most enjoyable thing here. The music is cleverly satirical, witty and technically demanding, but the Joyful Company of Singers are well up to the task. They positively bounce through the delightfully buoyant “The Quacks”, while the gentle parody of English folksongs in “A Traveller” is enchanting. Unfortunately, the booklet only gives texts for the Requiem.