If there is a weak spot for Britain’s excellent and varied choral ensembles it’s in Russian repertoire. Tenebrae’s superb recording of Rachmaninov’s Vespers (Signum, 9/05) and the Holst Singers’ ‘Ikon’ (Hyperion, 8/97) with Stephen Layton aside, there’s a dearth of really outstanding discs. Enter American chamber choir Conspirare and director Craig Hella Johnson to show us what we’re missing.

‘The Sacred Spirit of Russia’ loosely follows the Divine Liturgy of the Russian Orthodox Church as it would occur on any feast day (with propers taken from the feast of the Nativity of Christ). This liturgical framework holds a patchwork of music from the ‘new Russian choral school’ of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, starting from Tchaikovsky and moving through Rachmaninov, Grechaninov and Chesnokov to the disc’s only living composer, Vladimir Martynov. That there are many premiere recordings here is both a delight and a terrible shame – a silent echo of Communist rule.

Russian Orthodoxy, with its a cappella choral textures and traditional Znamenny chants, is the shared musical touchstone through these works. Chant-based simplicity dominates Chesnokov’s Cherubic Hymn and the exquisite Bless the Lord, O my soul by Ippolitov-Ivanov, while Grechaninov and Kastalsky’s music brings a richer and more direct emotionalism to the same material. A standout is Martynov’s radiant setting of The Beatitudes, in which solo female voices weave and arc against a backdrop of humming.

Conspirare are at their richest and most carefully blended here. Everything is rooted in the bass, as it should be, and the forward brightness of the upper voices creates thrilling friction against their darker tones. This music has waited a long time for a champion, and Conspirare do it proud.