Bryars is a subtle subverter of preconceptions. His choral works suggest the outpourings of a devout Holy Minimalist…but he’s an atheist/agnostic/humanist, isn’t he? Known for demonstrating that any text can sound numinous if set to certain chords and cadences, he nevertheless respects genuine emotions invoked by liturgical music.

The central piece of this CD focuses on a poem written in 1867 by the man who was to become Pope Leo XIII, yet the text is a paean to photography which, today, far from being a mystical art recreating Nature, is available at the mundane push of a mobile-phone button. (IT is also arcane and beyond comprehension, but hardly mystical.) Bryars uses the Latin original and Italian translation of the poem, imbuing them, and the hymn used for the third movement, with richly coloured yet almost weightless harmonies.

When I interviewed him two years ago Bryars spoke of how he was happy to adopt the forms of church music but felt that ‘resonance and meaning are put in by listeners’. He sets several hares running, including debates about the potential use/misuse of music; but, just as important, he writes pieces like these, breathtaking in their beauty and sometimes, as with his celebrated Jesus’ blood never failed me yet (1972), almost unendurably moving.

Silvestrov’s diptych of the Lord’s Prayer and a poem by Tara Shevchenko matches Bryars for radiance and harmonic sumptuousness, with some particularly impressive writing for the basses. Maskats’s piece exploits a remarkable range of vocal timbres which demonstrates the considerable quality of the choir.