There are perhaps two discoveries here. I say ‘perhaps’, because both things are already known. Jheronimus Vinders is one of those composers known today by a single work, O mors inevitabilis, the lament he wrote on the death of Josquin. His career is shadowy, but the provenance of his other known works suggests a degree of recognition in his lifetime. The case for getting to know him better is powerfully made here with two Masses and their models. Both are equally approachable, with more varied textures than those of Gombert, say. Vinders seems especially adept at repeating material exactly for rhetorical effect, in Josquin’s signature manner, and the Credos sport the Josquinian trick of referencing plainchant Credos periodically.

Those used to the early Renaissance will find themselves on familiar ground, but Vinders is more than a minor master: the longer movements have the formal legibility worthy of a fine craftsman and the Sanctus of Missa Fors seulement (based not on Ockeghem’s song but on the later setting by Févin) has some impressive writing, and the expansive close of the Salve regina is truly memorable. A few songs (including those on which the Masses are based) are played by the evergreen Andrew Lawrence-King, who sometimes accompanies a couple of high voices: this is lovely programming, not least because such pieces are so rarely heard that way, and because the intimacy of the harp contrasts so well with the power of the choir.

That brings me to the second discovery: The Choir of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, is hardly unknown but its current sound may well strike you as a revelation. Mixed Oxbridge choirs vary in quality but this one has a clarity and cohesion of which many a professional ensemble would be proud. Under David Skinner’s directorship they shape lines with elegance and purpose, allowing Vinders’s complex textures to come across very legibly. That a choir two-dozen strong sounds so focused is remarkable. More impressive still for such young singers, they convey the architecture of these movements very persuasively. The acoustic of the chapel of Tanzenberg Castle is a little reverberant for my taste but doesn’t detract from any of the qualities I’ve mentioned; another reason to welcome this very rewarding piece of enlightened advocacy.