A cappella quartets and quintets generally belong to the world of Byrd and the barbershop. Mozart’s vocal canons are like saucy seaside postcards (‘Leck mir den Arsch’, K233, only the most notorious among them) and even before deafness overcame him, Beethoven lacked either the technique or the inclination to write sympathetically for vocal consort, to judge from the 14 texts of Metastasio written over a decade from 1793 onwards and posthumously gathered in their sundry settings as WoO99. The melodies are largely undistinguished, the part-writing stubbornly awkward even once Salieri had run his red pen over them.

It’s little wonder that attempts to record the entire set have been made only under the aegis of ‘complete’ Beethoven editions. Any listener wishing to acquire them separately and on a CD will make do with this Naxos album, sung by the youthful voices of Ensemble Tamanial (confusingly known in the set as the Tabea Ensemble) and studio-recorded with the curious impression of post-production resonance. The French-made Warner Classics recording enjoys a more natural acoustic as well as rather more smoothly negotiated performances but can only be acquired separately as a digital bundle.

Collectors will likely be more attracted by alternative versions of late pieces such as the Opferlied better known, if at all, in their orchestral garb. There is an unpretentious freshness to the singing of Cantus Novus Wien well suited to the strophic conventions of the Bundeslied in this more intimate setting, even if the sopranos are still stretched by Beethoven’s inclination to take them above the stave and keep them there in the rustic Cantata campestre. I’m left wondering what a really crack ensemble such as the Monteverdi Choir would make of pieces that have, so far on record, resisted all attempts to gild them by association with the composer of the Ninth and the Missa.