Schumann’s sacred music remains the least-explored facet of his output – less appreciated even than his forays into opera and oratorio. Perhaps in this regard he was his own worst enemy: the Mass in C minor of 1852 53, known as the Missa sacra, hardly trumpets its attractions. Drenched in archaic counterpoint, a result of the composer’s absorption in the music of Bach and Palestrina, an insensitive performance can leave it sounding like a poor relation of Brahms’s German Requiem, only with all the riotous humour removed.

I last came across the Mass in a recording by Les Cris de Paris under Geoffroy Jourdain, welcoming its clear sound picture and heartfelt choral singing. That was of the orchestral version of the work, while this one is accompanied only by organ, in an arrangement made by Schumann himself. Following it with the full score, one is aware of instrumental details that have been omitted for practical reasons. For all that orchestral colour is lost, the work’s contrapuntal musculature and architectural mastery are exposed the more strikingly and the Mass is revealed as a work of awed, subtle beauty in an identifiably pared-down ‘late’ style. The Swedish Radio Choir are fully invested in every note and phrase, resulting in a truly gripping performance. Johan Hammarström is an acutely responsive accompanist and the best of the soloists, drawn from the choir, are the sopranos Kathrin Lorenzen in the Gloria’s ‘Gratias’ and Jennie Eriksson Nordin in the ecstatic offertory Tota pulchra es.

For Schumann’s admirers, this is an indispensible companion to the French recording of the orchestral version. Like that recording, the coupling is the quartet of part-songs that climaxes in a virile setting of Goethe’s ‘Talismane’ – surely Schumann’s double-choir masterpiece, if any such thing there be. Urgently recommended.