This is the fourth double-CD of this ambitious project, of which each instalment explores the contents of one of a set of six mid-16th-century choirbooks preserved in the Dutch town of Leiden. However you look at it, a dozen CDs is a daunting undertaking, but the Egidius Kwartet and its eponymous College seem now to have hit their stride. The reservations I expressed in previous reviews are largely dissipated, for by now the two ensembles have well and truly gelled. The excessive restraint I also mentioned is absent: Jacobus Clemens non Papa’s Pastores loquebantur is delivered with great aplomb, and Johannes Lupi’s Expurgate vetus fermentum is similarly festive. The doubling of the cantus firmus (actually the tenor of the song Fors seulement) at the octave in Verdelot’s Infirmitatem nostrum, though puzzling, is done quite unobtrusively.

In terms of programming, too, this volume is a conspicuous success. It focuses exclusively on motets, of which this fourth choirbook includes both very famous ones and others much less so. One aspect of the genre in mid-century that comes across very clearly is the effectiveness of the repeat that occurs when the two halves of a motet conclude with the same text and music. To hear so many instances in close succession helps one understand why composers did this so often. Another aspect is the worth of the pieces by lesser-known figures. Nicolas Payen was hardly unknown in his day, since he headed the imperial chapel for a time, but his Virgo prudentissima is an instructive setting of a much-loved chant. For real obscurity, turn to the likes of Eustache Barbion or one ‘Johannes Flamingus’, whose Da pacem, though simple, is perfectly accomplished. Among the period’s real luminaries, Clemens features prominently: his clutch of motets sees the College at its best. All told, there’s scarcely a piece here that doesn’t repay repeated listening. Clearly Leiden’s church musicians were either well connected or exceptionally well informed.