One hears that choristers’ schools are having trouble recruiting nowadays but a string of CDs in the last three years has seen children tackling more and more demanding repertory with superlative results. Corona spinea is not quite as well known as Taverner’s other mature festal Mass cycle, Gloria tibi trinitas, and its treble parts are especially taxing. To my knowledge this is its first complete recording with children on these lines. Duncan Ferguson takes a markedly more brisk view of the work compared with The Sixteen’s recording for Hyperion 20 years ago (which was hardly leisurely): given the rather full acoustic and a comparatively recessed sound recording, it’s perhaps a little too rushed in places (the end of the Gloria, for instance). On the other hand, the trebles’ shaping of their lines shows remarkable intelligence and sure-footedness, compared to which The Sixteen’s floaty, uninflected approach seems a little aimless. The sequences, for which the Mass is especially renowned, brim over with urgency. Though a touch less secure technically, this reading more than compensates by dint of sheer exuberance. The second Agnus Dei is particularly memorable: these young singers’ pleasure in their music-making is simply infectious. As to the sound recording, when listened to on headphones the ambience comes across as very natural and the details astonishingly clear.

The other works here are among Taverner’s best-known. Some of the tempo-changes in O splendor gloriae are difficult to understand but the beautifully crafted Leroy Kyrie and the Dum transisset settings are very nicely done. More, please.