The choral heritage of Cambridge's Trinity College is distinguished, especially so within the tenures of Richard Marlow and the present director, Stephen Layton, under each of whom has flourished an SATB choir of particular and acclaimed distinction. The stupendous recital on this CD unfolds with a glorious setting of Ave Maria, intensely prayerful and deeply felt—a wonderful by-product of its composer's participation as a course tutor in Aosta in northern Italy. Sonorities are rich and textures focus on middle and lower vocal registers.

More athletic choralism emerges from the Stuttgart Psalms, written in 2009 to commemorate the birth of Mendelssohn 200 hundred years before. Mäntyjärvi creates compelling choral textures, and each and every syllable rings crystal-clear to even the most reluctant listener—who would have to be hard-hearted not to be deeply moved by these psalm-based motets with their stunningly delivered solo segments and vocal ‘standout’ features impressively delivered from within the choir.

While drawing, with great subtlety, on earlier traditions in these pieces, a yet stronger tradition from the medieval period, that of organum, pervades the ambience of Benedic anima mea, and is perhaps more impactful on account of its comparative brevity. Pulchra es, written for the wedding of the composer's son, is shorter still with an effect wholly disproportionate to its length! This is music con amore, being—appropriately—a text drawn from the erotic heart of the Song of Songs that explores something of the tessitura of Duruflé's Four Motets on Gregorian themes along the way of its gentle intensity, with especially warm multi-repeats of the first line as a coda.

At the centrepiece comes the composer's 2019 Trinity Service for Choral Evensong, where Anglican influences are strong. Something of the shadow of the legendary Bernard Rose pervades Mäntyjärvi's setting of the Responses, which are based in much the same tonality, though here in the key of A rather than Rose's D.

A final bonus is a setting of O magnum mysterium, a Respond from the Christmas office of Matins that has been taken up eagerly by composers such as Gabrieli and Victoria and, frequently, today's generation also. The Finnish take on the words has something unique to say, especially with respect to the ‘greatness' wonderfully achieved in lengthy, sustained sonority.

A Rolls-Royce of a recording from Stephen Layton and his singers. It is a ‘must-have' for all serious music lovers.