The disc opens with a morose Advent antiphon simply titled O which, we are told, is derived from the sound ‘O’ which is to be found in many liturgical texts, and especially in the Latin antiphons which frame the Magnificat at the office of Vespers during the last week of Advent. This particular antiphon is the one set to be sung on the fourth day before Christmas. Originally one of the Strathclyde Motets of 2007, MacMillan arranged it the following year for three treble voices, trumpet and strings. I imagine it works very well in that setting. Unfortunately here the voices are distinctly female and soprano, and the lack of purity as well as the rather heavily nuanced diction (notably giving a certain thickness to the vowel ‘O’) lend the piece an unwholesome solidity.

The absence of texts or translations is a disappointment, but since the other choral works on the disc are the two evening canticles – the Magnificat and the Nunc dimittis – the texts of which are pretty well universally known, it is not too serious an omission. In any case, the largest single item here is the powerful orchestral piece Tryst, composed in 1989. MacMillan here drives the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic with great verve, producing a performance which is as exciting as it is absorbing. Compared with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Jerzy Maksymiuk (Koch-Schwann, 10/92), this is altogether tauter and dramatically more vivid.

Both the Magnificat and the Nunc dimittis were composed for British cathedral choirs (Wells and Winchester respectively – although the booklet-notes erroneously suggest the Nunc dimittis was commissioned by Westminster Cathedral) and have been recorded in a cathedral setting (by the Wells choir – Hyperion, 9/11). The added colour of the orchestral accompaniment on this Challenge Classics disc is a big plus; the rather stodgy singing of the Netherlands Radio Choir is not. This is clearly a very fine choir but somehow it seems awkward and clumsy in this repertoire, making too much of a meal of the dynamics and phrasing, and in the process obscuring the inherent beauty of Macmillan’s inspired writing.