It may not be Allegri’s Miserere, but Taverner’s Missa Corona spinea is still one of the virtuoso highlights of Renaissance choral music.

For long stretches the sopranos soar an octave above the rest of the singers, regularly lingering on high B flats (at present-day pitch) like gymnasts poised at the highest point of a routine on the rings. The Tallis Scholars are up to the challenge.

Peter Phillips leads a gleaming performance of Taverner’s 'crown of thorns' mass and also adds the composer’s two contrasting settings of Dum transisset Sabbatum for Easter Sunday.