The Choir of Royal Holloway, of whose previous incarnation I was once a member, is these days a bustling professional outfit, reconciling the liturgical year with many concert engagements. Their championship of the music of the Baltic countries is a true feather in their cap, as this proves once again.

The Estonian Tõnu Kõrvits was born in 1969 and has a successful career as composer, arranger and teacher. His captivating Kreek’s Notebook is a 30-minute-long set of reworkings of devotional folk melodies collected by the great Estonian Cyrillus Kreek. These simple, memorable melodies are couched in Kõrvits’s own lush (but never too lush) arrangements, supported by modal cushions and, just as frequently, undermined by independent writing for the strings. Lovely though this is, his Brontë setting The night is darkening round me outstrips it utterly. Its keening, nocturnal atmosphere is caught perfectly by both choir and soloist Kate Telfer, the interaction between them both intimate and sure.

Of the works by Latvian Arturs Maskats, the Lacrimosa is the more ‘obvious’ but none the less powerful, a memorial for those who perished on the Baltic ferry Estonia in 1994; Lūgums naktij is a wonderful, enigmatic nocturne of enormous subtlety. Pēteris Plakidis, also from Latvia and the oldest of the three composers recorded here, is represented by In memoriam and Fatamorgāna. The former is truly haunting, spun from the folk music of the composer’s native country; the latter, in three movements, is more diverse but in the end less cohesive. Performances and recording are outstanding.