This is an interesting programme, subtitled Christmas Reflections. The Jervaulx Singers are an octet founded in 2021, and here they present a varied recital leaning towards the gentler side of the Christmas repertory, with a couple of excursions into both opera and French art song.

The singing is generally polished, and tuning, tone, balance and blend are all impeccable, although there is a recurrent tendency to omit final consonants. A few pieces are expertly accompanied on the piano by Alison Francis Gill.

Unusual items include a sympathetic performance of a German arrangement of Cornelius’s The Three Kings, which is more elaborate than the well-known Atkins version, and Elizabeth Poston’s Jesus Christ the Apple Tree, with the final verse sung very effectively as a four-part round, a challenge sadly only rarely taken up. There’s also a melancholic extract from a secular Samuel Barber opera, and songs by Fauré and Debussy. The former showcases the unforced tenor voice of Gareth Meirion Edmunds, while the latter is an extraordinary dramatic war-time ‘carol’ with the composer’s own text calling for the punishment of enemies and vengeance for “the children of France”. A real curiosity. Other highlights include Rutter’s Nativity Carol sung with beautifully legato tone, and Away in a manger to the lovely, simple traditional tune given as an alternative in the original Carols for Choirs.

However, for me the stand-out track is an imaginative and dramatic setting by Matthew Coleridge of Adam lay y-bounden, composed for this group who give it the virtuoso performance it deserves.