Peace Upon You, Jerusalem is Arvo Pärt’s take on I was glad. Celebration is made manifest not via gleaming D major and rampant trumpets but light, tripping rhythms from a tight soprano-alto group with two soloists, eyes raised heavenwards. Every vowel and consonant is shaped and pointed on this account from the upper voices of a professional Massachusetts choir (apparently the first from America to have recorded Pärt); enunciation is superb and corporate vocal tone distinctive.

That acts as a palate-cleanser for the more structurally and theologically complicated pieces to come, in which the performances aren’t so arresting and are varied in their success. The calmed, steady chant of Pärt’s Salve regina (in its original version, though we don’t quite get the spatial effects) is tightly controlled by Pugsley but allowed to breathe, tapered down organically, if the heavier traffic at ‘illos tuos misericordes …’ isn’t handled or captured so well. For the most part, the choir’s singing combines engaged and front-footed delivery high on enunciation but with recessed, veiled control; I would relish the chance to hear them singing well-prepared Anglican Chant.

I willed the Stabat mater to have more of the same qualities as both pieces mentioned but the reflective nature of the recurring shapes is better released when approached more like chant than declamation. As so often with this piece, the tonal difference between the tenors’ and womens’ voices curdles, but in this case due to the pronounced vibrato of the latter and relative purity of the former (it’s usually the opposite). ‘Fac me plagis’ really needs more purity and accuracy from the sopranos than it gets here, and vibrato can suck rapture from Pärt’s Magnificat and peace from the Nunc dimittis.

That this is a high-end and exceptionally well-drilled choir is in no doubt. There are plenty of moments that prove it but often with this recording the view of the trees is more impressive than that of the wood. For that reason alone the inclusion of Pärt’s L’abbé Agathon makes some sense; it’s a narrative piece telling of the testing of an abbot. But when taken even further from the liturgical chant of the Stabat mater, Pärt’s narrative tools can seem obvious and a little clunky, one rung below Stainer’s Crucifixion. I’m not convinced this is Pärt’s strong suit but, in performance, it could well be GDC’s.