A product of Oxbridge and London’s Guildhall School of Music (and a former member of King’s College Choir), Marcus Creed has forged a distinguished career for himself in Germany, where he currently holds the posts of professor of conducting at Cologne’s Musikhochschule and artistic director of the SWR Vokalenensemble Stuttgart. They’re a tremendously adroit and versatile group whose immaculate polish, scrupulous blend and stylish musicality cannot fail to impress. Certainly it’s hard to imagine more luminously textured or jaw-droppingly eloquent renderings of the two pieces by James MacMillan. O bone Jesu (2002) was designed as a companion piece to the eponymous 19-part motet by the 16th-century Scot, Robert Carver, and shares that work’s exuberant virtuosity and formal design. Creed and company lend it breathtaking advocacy, totally unfazed by the fearsome technical challenges, and it’s a similar story in the plaintive glow of Màiri, an inspired setting of the 19th-century Gaelic poet Evan MacColl, written for the BBC Singers to mark their 70th anniversary in 1994.

If the performance of Vaughan Williams’s sublime Mass doesn’t muster the same degree of devotional ardour that made Mike Brewer’s recent recording with Laudibus such a treat (Delphian, 11/08), it’s still an impressively mellifluous display, albeit without disturbing my own longstanding allegiance to much-loved predecessors like Matthew Best’s 1983 Corydon Singers account (Helios, 10/87R) and Sir David Willcocks’s 1968 King’s College version (EMI). The beautiful part song Silence and Music (VW’s contribution to the 1953 Coronation collection A Garland for the Queen) comes off very well in Stuttgart. Stunningly natural SACD sound from the SWR production crew. Short measure, then, but superior quality!