Children don’t like the music they have to perform to be hard (hard to learn, hard to get right, hard to enjoy). But neither do they want soft, soppy, kids’ stuff, so easy there’s no sense of achievement. Bob Chilcott has got it wonderfully right – at least for the children of the Cotswolds (the more murderous districts of my own home town might not take it so readily). For words, he gives them Kathleen Raine and Roger McGough. The first teaches them spells: spells of sleep and safekeeping and bringing lost creatures home. McGough teaches them about the six elements, plus an extra 109th: he teaches rhythmically. Chilcott makes tunes of them, but not the tunes you could make up yourself or that don’t bring out more music than you ever knew was in you. You sing his music to make lovely sounds, but only by letting him take you a little bit further in melody and rhythm than the end of your nose. And the words aren’t common-sense exactly; but they find a way into your mind and live there.

The disc is a tonic. The boys and girls of the Cotswold Children’s Choir sing with unfailing musical tone, good diction and fresh spirits. They have been well trained (thanks to Hilary Tadman-Robins). Here they have, it’s true, a luxury: at least, it’s unlikely they have a pianist as distinguished as Philip Ledger to play for them every day of the week. Together, they make delightful music and, I should hope, show others the way to do the same.