Just as one celebrates the best of those atmospheric recordings of Bach in the 1950s and ’60s from the less glamorous regions of Germany – such as Pforzheim and Bremen – so this new expressive landscape from Yorkshire brings a distinctive corporate identity and vision to the St John Passion.

Peter Seymour selects his soloists from the widest pool, including one of Britain’s most experienced and responsive Evangelists, Charles Daniels. The choir, the female solo parts and small “roles”, on the other hand, are drawn from young musicians with close family or educational connections to the county. Although some of the solo vocal contributions are brittle, the projection of the sense of the text is unfailingly successful: both “Ich folge” and “Ach, mein Sinn”, for example, may not stand technical scrutiny alongside seasoned recordings by the likes of Gardiner, Herreweghe and Rilling but the essence of meaning is embedded in every sinew of the lines.

The results are indeed as dramatically coherent and satisfying as I’ve heard for a while. Seymour’s considered pacing begins with a pungent and deliberately graphic opening chorus – the choir are disarmingly flexible and communicative throughout – but extends into a brilliantly judged world of elision between crowd chorus, aria, chorale and narrative; when stillness comes – and it arrives especially strikingly in Stephan Loges’s exquisite arioso, “Betrachte” – the impact is served well by a realistic, rolling and unforced sense of narrative.

Unusually, this is not a journey we recognise at every turn. The over-pointing of the chorales makes for some unnecessary rhetorical mannerisms but when the stakes are highest (such as “Er nahm”, which movingly reflects the crucified Jesus honouring his mother), Seymour lets the music speak for itself. Other than the ever-engaged and intelligent Daniels, and Loges’s involving presence (and let’s not forget Varcoe’s gently cultivated Jesus), the most telling solo work comes from Joshua Ellicott. His “Erwäge” is wonderfully shaded and characterised. “Es ist vollbracht” doesn’t, alas, quite live up to its pivotal potential.

Despite some uneven contributions (including a few ragged corners in the strings), this is a St John which carries open-hearted conviction and character before it. Only Wilfrid Mellers’s surreal essay appears at odds with the directness and lucidity of this searching account. He writes, “Come to think of it, this is why Bach’s piece ‘passes understanding’; there is nothing to understand in the quietude of a cabbage.”