The 23-strong Caritas Chamber Choir was founded in 2011 and is based in East Kent. The choir’s seventh CD release was recorded in the warm and generous acoustic of the Chapel of St Michael and St George at the Duke of York’s Royal Military School in Dover and features premiere recordings by a quartet of contemporary composers, the most well-known probably being James MacMillan. His 2013 setting of If ye love me shares a soothing balm and harmonic delicacy with Tallis’s more celebrated motet. Caritas’s performance of I will take you from the nations (2014) is notable for their clarity of diction and unanimity of attack, and Millie Heyward’s soprano solo in Be who God meant you to be is outstanding. This motet is the longest track on the disc and an undoubted highlight. For an edgier and more full-blooded idiom, try the sopranos’ attack at the opening of Phillip Cooke’s Veni sponsa Christi or his equally striking Christus resurgens. The engineer has managed to capture the choir’s wide dynamic range, both of volume and expression.

A native Norwegian, Henrik Dahlgren, reworks timeless Marian texts in his Three Latin Hymns. Of these, the second, ‘Ave regina’, is perhaps the most distinctive. The final notes for the basses are especially resonant and lovely. Andrew Smith’s pair of St Olav motets reflect his domicile in Norway. The second, Christi tractus in odore, is made even more effective by the welcome use of a variety of textures. The volume level jumps slightly disconcertingly in Smith’s An Old Irish Blessing, which nonetheless provides the perfect finale: a glowing choral sunset that displays a compelling warmth of vocal control and blend.

Congratulations to Benedict Preece and his singers on producing such a nicely balanced anthology of unhurried music, with exemplary notes, texts and presentation. Here’s hoping that their reputation spreads far and wide.