For their latest offering, Capilla Flamenca place some of the Ars subtilior’s most famous pieces (those by Ciconia, Cordier and Hasprois) in a context out of which they grow quite naturally rather than appear in a sort of rogue’s gallery, one wilfully bizarre piece after another. Thus with Machaut, some of whose stranger inventions must have inspired the younger generation growing up around him; and Solage, one of the genre’s brightest stars, represented here by three pieces remarkable not so much for their rhythmic complexity as for melodic subtlety and formal clarity.

The musicological twist to the programming lies in the Flemish provenance of the sources for most of these pieces. This is most clearly heard in the pieces with Flemish texts by Thomas Fabri; quantitatively slight, they enhance this recital’s distinctive flavour, quite unlike that of any other Ars subtilior anthology I can think of.

Capilla Flamenca’s tone matches the intention of the programming. There is little overt display of virtuosity, even in places where one might expect it. The birdsong of Or sus, vous dormés trop is echoed by a recorder, but the conceit isn’t overdone. Of the four singers, the busiest is countertenor Marnix de Cat, whose solos are particularly well managed. A variety of combinations of voices and instruments is deployed, with scarcely a weak link in the chain. I particularly enjoyed the three unaccompanied lower voices in Solage’s Calextone. Individually, the instrumental contributions are perhaps less sure-footed but the whole makes very positive impression: rarely has the strange, eccentric world of Ars subtilior sounded less outlandish.