Francis Jackson is very much the elder statesman of the British organ community. He has remained active as an organist and composer ever since his retirement in 1982 as Organist at York Minster (a post he held for 36 years), and while his organ pieces are well represented on disc, his choral music is less well known. Yet his output for choir is both extensive and wide-ranging, as this superb new disc reveals.

The opening work, composed in 1988, is one of no fewer than 10 Mass settings Jackson has composed. This has a distinctly Howellsian feel to it, not least in the gentle and atmospheric Kyrie, the flowing lines gracefully traced by the Exon Singers at their most relaxed and assured. The triumphant Gloria (described as packing a “Gallic punch” in the booklet-notes) is marked by some virtuoso organ playing from David Bednall.

The other major work here is the Evening Service in B flat, its homage to Weelkes revealed in its use of five-part choral textures; neither the lavish organ accompaniment nor Jackson's opulent harmonies recalling Weelkes in any way. This is a noble setting sung here with magnificent expansiveness by the group for whom it was written in 2005. A Hymn to God the Father, commissioned by the Exon Singers and setting words by John Donne, is also in five parts and accompanied. But Jackson's music here recalls more than anything else the character of early 20th-century English choral music; the name of Arnold Bax is evoked in this instance. One cannot discern in this programme a particularly distinctive or original compositional voice, but given Matthew Owens's affectionate readings and the Exon Singers' beautifully tailored singing, not to mention a richly atmospheric recording from Wells Cathedral, this presents as touching and rewarding a compendium of very English 20th-century church music as one could wish for.