Earliest here is the Five Madrigals (1947) – settings of the Renaissance poet François Villon (albeit in the interventionist translation by Paul Zech), whose overtly nonconformist attitude doubtless struck a chord within the young Henze. The string quintet and brass sextet weave their capricious course through the choral texture, with the music’s underlying neoclassicism enlivened by bitonal elements which suggest lessons well learned from Wolfgang Fortner. At the time of his ‘choral fantasy’ Lieder von einer Insel (1964), Henze had been resident for several years on Ischia and these five settings of his regular collaborator Ingeborg Bachmann mingle rapture and regret to haunting effect; not the least attraction being the luminous choral textures, thrown into relief by discreet commentary from an ensemble of seven instruments.

The ballet Orpheus marked the extent of Henze’s political phase, to which the a cappella cycle Orpheus Behind the Wire (1984) forms an eloquent pendant. Here the recourse to non-singing techniques and often dense textures confirms the wider expressive range, at once meditative and anguished, in what is assuredly among the highlights of its composer’s later years. There have been other recordings, not least a fine one by the Berlin Radio Chorus on a disc that also features the Orpheus-related cantata Aristaeus, but the logical coupling of this disc is its own justification – making another self-recommending release from the SWR Vocal Ensemble.