Here The Gesualdo Six tackle two of Renaissance polyphony’s warhorses, an imaginative pairing that also welcomes two short works by contemporary composers. Tallis’s Lamentations and Gesualdo’s Responsories have been recorded many times by ensembles of the highest calibre. In both cases The Gesualdo Six do more than stake their claim. I prefer them in Gesualdo, where they out-punch most of the competition: The Hilliard Ensemble often tap deeper into the music’s emotional core but ECM’s more recessed sound recording seems to me to have dated (and the same applies in the case of the Tallis Lamentations). Just occasionally, The Gesualdo Six give the impression of trying too hard (at ‘Vos fugam capietis’ in the very first set the portrayal of the disciples’ flight takes the notion too literally, sacrificing contrapuntal clarity; but even here, the way they snap back into focus at the end is startling). In the most powerful Responsory of this set, ‘Ecce vidimus eum’, sinuous detail and hyper-realist brilliance are held in perfect balance.

The comparison with The Hilliards is rewarding, because their voices are more variegated than those of The Gesualdo Six (the two countertenors in particular), giving a greater sense of detail, where the younger musicians privilege monumentality. Detractors of the English vocal tradition are wont to reproach such ensembles with playing safe, but as English as The Gesualdo Six sound, one has to applaud the element of risk-taking in their performance: in comparison, La Compagnia del Madrigale are approximate, Collegium Vocale Gent too fastidious. And if you don’t take risks with Gesualdo, you may as well not bother. In any case, it was time we heard them in the music of the composer whose name they have taken; the rest of the set is eagerly anticipated.

Their Tallis is also very good, but not quite as impressive: conveying the warp and weft of Tallis’s counterpoint may be more a matter of guile than skill, and to the extent that there’s a received opinion of ‘how the music should go’, The Gesualdo Six deliver but don’t really step outside it. (The livelier tempo at ‘Gimell: Migravit Juda’ hints at something different, though just before the end of the verse ‘Daleph: omnes persecutores ejus’ the texture – a static chord – is a bit clogged.) The Hilliard Ensemble and the Taverner Consort (both, like the Gesualdos, one-to-a-part) seem to me to make more of the music’s twists and turns; but wholehearted admirers of The Gesualdo Six are unlikely to be disappointed.