The texts aren’t helped to give up their secrets by the album’s magpie approach to programming, gathering single movements from choral cycles, incidental music and choral concertos into a beautiful but rather incoherent collage. Sviridov, for example, is represented by two movements from Pushkin’s Garland, music for Aleksey Tolstoy’s play Tsar Feodor Ionnovich and individual works from three other cycles. This is more sampler than sustained exploration.

That being said, the Latvian Radio Choir (directed by Sigvards Kl,ava) prove themselves adept at reinventing themselves. Falik’s A Stranger and Habanera pulse with worldly rhythms and life, swooping and swooning in wild portamentos, while Sviridov’s Icon and Sacred Love demand complete restraint and glowing understatement.

A rich bass section helps anchor the Russian music, grounding it not only harmonically but also stylistically in the Russian Orthodox choral tradition that lies behind the music of all three composers. It’s a shame that the upper voices can’t match them for rounded blend. The choir’s soprano line is characterised throughout by an unusually tight, pinched sound that fails to find the maturity to carry these densely woven texts. There’s nothing naive or folk-innocent here in these complicated narratives of faith and human isolation, and it would have been nice to hear a choral sound evolved to reflect that.