If it does nothing else, I sincerely hope that this superb recording will encourage others to follow the Brabant Ensemble’s lead: here is a composer able to work out the most ingenious tricks (as Rice’s note reminds us), all the while injecting the idiom familiar from Gombert with more effects of light and shade than Gombert himself often seems inclined to do.

The play with false relations is also less marked, though he indulges it on occasion. Listening to some recent recordings (a few of them on the same label) I feel that the Mass does not always bring out the best in the composers of this period, but I would make an exception in Manchicourt’s case. His ability to worry over specific points, like a dog with a bone, engineers very effective climaxes in the longer movements.

But the motets are superb also, and the Magnificat leads the disc to a triumphant conclusion. The Brabant Ensemble here sports a confidence and sureness of purpose which is indispensable in music as meaty and ambitious as this. FABRICE FITCH