The Swede Bo Hansson is a man of many talents: a guitarist, and a composer of a wide range of music in folk and jazz idioms. Choral music might be a relatively recent departure for him, but its roots run deep, back to the days of his childhood when he sang as a treble in his local choir. He has observed that ‘the human voice is the closest you can come to your soul’ and in that search he writes music that demands much of its performers in its sustained intensity of sound, a penchant for a cappella and a fresh way with word-setting even in the most established of texts, as in the darting energy of the Gloria from the Missa brevis.

Rupert Gough and his Royal Holloway Choir are no strangers to Hyperion, having previously made waves in music by Baltic composers Miškinis and Dubra. Here’s yet another sign that he’s one of the most exciting choral conductors of his generation.