Decca has the Cistercian monks of Heiligenkreuz and the nuns of Notre-Dame-de-L’Annonciation, ClassicFM has the Ampleforth monks, Deutsche Grammophon the Benedictine monks of Beuron Archabbey, and now Sony has added the members of the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter to its roster. Gregorian chant – once a niche of a classical niche – has become big business in the record industry, but only when performed by religious orders themselves rather than by professional ensembles. Which raises the question of why people buy these discs: is it for the music or is it rather for some ineffable spirituality, some religious essence they possess, or the ritual they enact?

There’s little in the packaging and presentation of ‘Requiem’, the debut recording from the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter, that suggests that music plays any but a supporting role in this release. Booklet notes are sparse, highlighting the chant’s role within the broader context of the Requiem service, and an introductory note from Father Gerard Saguto invites the listener to ‘experience a form of the Requiem as it has been prayed throughout the world for centuries’.

Nevertheless, there’s plenty here to please on a purely musical level. While the best-selling monks of Heiligenkreuz have a distinctively grainy texture to their singing, a slightly pursed and nasal quality, the singing here is far freer and more youthful. Lengthy chants, such as the ‘Ego sum’ antiphon and the offertory ‘Domine, Jesu Christe’, move forward with pulse and fluidity, and if the movement isn’t always unanimous, this only adds to the disc’s sense of a ritual overheard rather than a performance recorded.

The Requiem Mass provides a wonderful variety of chants, from the sweetly affirmative ‘Lux aeterna’ to the dark agitation of Celano’s ‘Dies irae’, and yet it’s still a relief when, finally, in the ‘Pie Jesu’ we get some polyphony (Palestrina’s setting of the text) to soften the severity of so much monophony. It’s not a performance that will win any awards; but, like the rest of the Mass recorded here, its directness and sincerity sets it apart from professional alternatives.