Mendelssohn wrote the two large-scale works on this disc of his church music, the Magnificat and Gloria, when – almost unbelievably – he was only 13. He studied with Karl Zelter, who believed in getting his pupils to copy the great masters. In this instance the boy seems to have modelled these two works in multiple sections on the Masses of Haydn even more than on Mozart. In each section he varies the vocal forces very effectively, and ends with a fugue.

The use of trumpets and timpani in both works but especially in the Magnificat is thrilling, and is superbly performed here, with bite and thrust bringing out the fact that even at 13 the boy was not just writing pastiche but was beginning to develop a style of his own. As Hans Keller used to say, Mendelssohn was even more phenomenal as a boy prodigy than Mozart, writing more impressive masterpieces while still in his teens. The other motets date from when

Mendelssohn was 19, and in these the influence of Bach is paramount, though again this is far more than mere pastiche, with some inspired progressions involving chromatic writing. Jesu meine Freude is nothing like Bach’s setting, being a fine example of contrapuntal writing closing with a fugue, while Tu es Petrus is highly dramatic. The remaining motet completes a generously filled disc, very well recorded with a dauntingly wide dynamic range.