A native of Uppsala, Mårten Jansson (b1965) composes almost wholly sacred music (or ‘sacral’ as he terms it in his accompanying notes). This 50-minute-long crowd-funded release contains six of his works, including texts by his fellow Swedes Einar Askestad and Kerstin Dillmar as well as the Missa popularis, which fills the second half of the disc. James Davey directs the 40-strong London-based choir Chantage, BBC Radio 3 Choir of the Year in 2006. Although their balance and intonation are always spot-on, at full throttle the choir’s tone can become a touch hard and unyielding.

However, the first few pieces on the disc are slow (and, on first acquaintance, perhaps a little dour). Thankfully the mood changes to something more uplifting with the last movement of the Triptyk of 2017, an ‘introspective journey … leading from despair to hope’. Jansson states that he has ‘always preferred beautiful music to atonal music’ and this is certainly the case in the disc’s centrepiece, a hauntingly effective setting of Hardy’s The Choirmaster’s Burial, inspired by a lecture given by Peter Pears in Sweden in 1981. This led 20 years later to this superb tribute to ‘the tenor man’, which allows Chantage to display the full glory of their four-octave range.

The concluding five-movement Missa popularis (2015) was originally composed for female voices and string quartet but is heard here in its more recent version with the addition of male voices and double bass. Inspired by different types of Swedish folk music and dance, it includes what must be the jolliest Gloria and Sanctus movements ever penned since Haydn. Olivia Clark soars radiantly above the choir in her soprano solo lines. The nine members of the Classical PopUps Strings provide svelte support in what deserves to be a big hit with choirs around the world.