In September 2006 pianist and composer Stephen Hough overturned on the motorway at 80mph. He walked away from the accident through the one miraculously undamaged door in the wreck of his car clutching the manuscript of the Mass he had been sketching for over a year. So when he came to give the piece a title, what else could it be but the Missa mirabilis?

The Mass becomes the centrepiece of a new recording from Michael Waldron and the London Choral Sinfonia, fast becoming the go-to champions for contemporary British choral music. Hough’s growing body of work supplies rich pickings, and Waldron already hints in the booklet notes that this may yet be just volume 1. The selection here, stretching back to 2004, is diverse: Catholic and Anglican, upper voices and mixed, cycles as well as stand-alone motets, with Hough’s Sonatina for organ offering textural contrast.

Hough’s Catholicism is well documented, but even if you didn’t know you’d hear it in music that tussles with faith and its tenets. There’s a gilded quality to much of it – bright with very high trebles (you can sense him imagining Westminster Cathedral Choir, as well as the building’s acoustic), cloudy with harmonic incense. You catch glimpses of the Renaissance polyphonists, as well as Messiaen, and there’s often something of Poulenc’s cheekiness in the rhythms.

It’s an attractive collection. The Mass sets the tone with its shifting moods, bittersweet and lulling in the lyrical Kyrie before heavenly trumpets exchange dazzling volleys in the Gloria. The Credo brings anxiety and doubt, as choppy syllables battle percussively against insistent statements of ‘Credo’. Agnus Deis can often feel like a fait accompli – peace granted before it has been asked. Not here: Hough’s music wrestles with the question, before – finally – achieving resolution.

Elsewhere there’s strong music for upper voices: the Londinium Canticles are an irresistibly contrasting pair, full of challenge and colour – trebles everywhere will look forward to these – while Three Marian Hymns offer a more meditative, accessible point of entry. And everywhere you look the organ-writing is doing something interesting, playing with scale and shading. The Sonatina itself, dashingly played by James Orford, is great fun.

Performances from the LCS are bold and full of scope, leaning into Hough’s climaxes, opening out into full-throated ecstasy. Just occasionally there’s some tightness at the top from sopranos trying to squash themselves into music intended for small boys, but it’s another canny piece of musical advocacy from Waldron and his ensemble: leaving others to chase the premieres while they fill important gaps in the recorded repertoire.