Remembrance is now as much a part of the record companies’ seasonal offering as are the major Christian festivals. As acts of remembrance take on additional poignancy this year, marking the centenary of the beginning of the First World War, Hyperion has released this recording by the Choir of Westminster Abbey, a building which lies at the very heart of national commemoration. All of the works included in this recording are linked in one way or another to the theme of war and remembrance and all but the first, more specifically, have connections to the abbey itself.

Duruflé’s Requiem may not always be thought of as a wartime work, but, as the informative booklet note points out, in its first performance in 1947, as broadcast on French radio, it shared the bill with two other works in memory of those who had lost their lives during the Second World War. Moreover, its origins in a 1941 commission by the Nazi-controlled Vichy regime may yield somewhat uneasy associations that, fortunately, have failed to undermine its status as a true masterpiece. This performance uses the chamber-orchestra accompaniment that Duruflé made later. Hyperion has captured the sound of the Britten Sinfonia and the Westminster Abbey organ with great integrity, despite their physical separation. The great detail of Duruflé’s writing is plainly apparent, such as the spinning-wheel ostinato of the ‘Sanctus’, and almost nowhere does the acoustic cloud matters. The Abbey choir too is well captured, sounding clean and bright, and the singing is naturally responsive to the ebb and flow of the underlying plainchant themes. Mezzo-soprano Christine Rice’s ‘Pie Jesu’ is dark-edged but consoling, while Roderick Williams brings a brooding yet dignified presence to his solo baritone passages.

Vaughan Williams’s setting of Psalm 90, Lord, thou hast been our refuge, is the work of a composer who experienced war first hand, and its solo trumpeter is a military reference that features in more than one of his war- inspired pieces. The work is built from two musical layers. The psalm text, with fluid, plainchant-like phrases, is juxtaposed with William Croft’s familiar, stirring music sung to the text ‘O God our help in ages past’, a hymn long associated in modern times with remembrance and itself a paraphrase of Psalm 90. The conjunction of these two ideas builds to a humbling climax that resounds gloriously in the abbey’s acoustic.

For the two unaccompanied works, the venue is the more intimate St Alban’s Church, Holborn. Philip Moore’s Three Prayers of Dietrich Bonhoeffer will be unknown to most, but their fine craftsmanship stands as a powerful testament to faith. The latter can also be said of Howells’s Take him, earth, for cherishing, which, although his Kennedy memorial commission, reflects a deeply personal faith. But whereas Howells clothes his material in characteristically sumptuous harmony, Moore has a sparer, more intellectual style throughout that projects well the essence of Bonhoeffer’s belief and ideological conviction. The two compositions take different courses, but they are complementary together in sequence.

To end we return to the Abbey and to another work which, like Vaughan Williams’s, contrasts two musical worlds, making excellent use of the huge space inside the building. In Tavener’s The peace that surpasseth understanding interaction between the main choir (Earth) and a remote semi-chorus (Heaven) creates a conspicuous sense of perspective that helps to assert that neither ‘height, nor depth ... shall be able to separate us from the love of God’. At last, God’s presence itself is made known through four thundering chords on the organ and a residual hum that hangs wraithlike in the stillness. It’s a dramatic conclusion not just to this work but to the whole sequence, and it’s interesting to make comparisons.

At the end of his Requiem, Duruflé transports the faithful souls to Heaven on ascending, radiant halos of ethereal strings; Tavener’s overpowering, elemental vision of God, by contrast, is a no less intense representation.

This disc offers a stimulating programme, beautifully performed and very well recorded. The choir is on excellent form and the soloists drawn from its ranks also deserve separate commendation, helping to make this a fine contribution to this year’s remembrance observations.