Schumann’s choral music is perhaps the most neglected section of this most – often wilfully – misunderstood composer’s output. It’s gratifying, then, that a vibrant young group arrives to take this music seriously and offer a performance as considered and worthwhile as this one of the late (1852) C minor Mass. This is music that breathes the air of Schumann’s studies of the counterpoint of Bach and Palestrina but which takes as its starting point the sound worlds of Mozart’s Requiem and Beethoven’s Missa solemnis, without aspiring to the ‘event’ status of either of them. Workaday performances can leave the impression of a composer uninspired by the text (the Credo, especially, can churn on if insensitively conducted) but there are moments that rise notably to the occasion: the Sanctus, with its ringing sopranos, is one; another is the offertory ‘Tota pulchra es’, in which Schumann the song-writer creates a truly touching two-page motet, heard here in its alternative version for muted string ensemble rather than organ accompanying the solo mezzo and cello.

The only alternative recordings of the Mass of which I am aware date from a quarter of a century ago: Wolfgang Sawallish, tentative in Berlin on EMI Gemini, and Michel Corboz, more sure-footed in Lisbon on Apex. Both are now found on the super-budget shelves but it is worth shelling out the extra for this newcomer for its clearer orchestral sound picture, heartfelt choral singing and, as its coupling, a vivid and open-throated performance of four late double-choir part-songs.