James O’Donnell masterminds an account of Vaughan Williams’s Mass in G minor to rank alongside the finest to have come my way. Not only is his an ideally unforced, lucid conception (the return of the Kyrie theme during the Agnus Dei at the words ‘miserere nobis’ sounding sublimely inevitable here), he also secures singing of effortless poise and heart-warming devotion from his Westminster Abbey colleagues. My goodness, the richness and vigour of RVW’s writing for his four soloists and double choir really does activate the goosebumps, yet there’s mystery and expectant hush aplenty at the heart of the Credo (‘Et incarnatus est’). Memorable, too, are those numinous undulations in the Sanctus, as well as the transcendent beauty of the work’s concluding measures. Set down last year to mark the piece’s centenary, this performance benefits from the ideally glowing acoustic of All Hallows, Gospel Oak, whereas that of O taste and see – the lovely communion anthem that RVW wrote for the coronation service of Queen Elizabeth II, and which opens with his signature phrase from ‘Sine nomine’ – was recorded in Westminster Abbey itself.

We stay in these artists’ home surroundings for another piece fashioned for a state occasion, namely James MacMillan’s consoling Who shall separate us?, an anthem for unaccompanied double choir commissioned and conceived in 2011 for the Queen’s state funeral. Described by its creator as a ‘mini sacred opera’, the urgently communicative 2017 anthem A Special Appeal (in which the Abbey’s organist Peter Holder excels) powerfully incorporates the words of Óscar Romero (1917 80), the Salvadorean archbishop assassinated while celebrating Mass and canonised by Pope Francis in October 2018. First heard in June 2022 on the Feast of St Peter, the impressive Mass of St Edward the Confessor bears a dedication to Westminster Abbey Choir School. Once again, MacMillan’s stunningly idiomatic writing for double choir is delivered with the utmost composure and conviction by O’Donnell’s home team, who are likewise totally unfazed by the cluster harmonies in the 2020 motet What man is he that feareth the Lord?, written for a Service of Thanksgiving in Westminster Abbey marking the 500th anniversary of the birth of William Cecil, Lord Burghley.

Bringing up the rear come two offerings by John Tavener (1944-2013) – deeply personal utterances, both, which most movingly testify to the composer’s fruitful immersion in Russian and Greek Orthodoxy (the composer converted to the faith in 1977). First we get that wholly characteristic setting of the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis Collegium Regale that Tavener wrote in 1986 for Stephen Cleobury and the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge. Rest assured, it receives breathtakingly mellifluous and rapt advocacy. The same holds true for Song for Athene, which incorporates elements of the Russian Orthodox funeral service with lines from Hamlet and words by Mother Thekla (1918-2011), a nun at the Greek Orthodox Monastery of the Assumption in North Yorkshire and Tavener’s avowed ‘spiritual mother’. Originally designed as a tribute to family friend, actress and teacher Athene Hariades (1966 93), it attained global reach when chosen by Martin Neary (the Abbey’s then Organist and Master of the Choristers) to accompany the departing cortège at the funeral service for Diana, Princess of Wales.

In sum, this classy collection will surely give lasting pleasure. Jeremy Dibble’s eloquent and scholarly annotation is a model of its kind.