The title piece, Messages by Ben Rowarth, sits at the centre of this unusually structured disc. The text of the piece comprises messages written by friends of the journalist David Knowles after his death at the age of 32. David read theology at Durham, where he sang in the chapel choir, later in the choir of the Anglican church in Geneva and then, back in London as a journalist, in the choir of St Bartholomew the Great. Rowarth’s music starts on a single note, growing out of nothing and gradually increasing in complexity as it allows the ‘messages’ about David to be heard. There follow eight anthems by Edward Bairstow and Francis Jackson: composers normally associated with York Minster, but who both received their doctorates from Durham, while Bairstow went on to become to become professor of music there.

At the start are two mournful Purcell anthems, Hear my prayer, O Lord and Remember not, Lord, our offences followed by the first complete recording of Amy Beach’s Four Canticles Op.78. This broadens the appeal of the disc far beyond its Durham connection. Beach wrote the pieces in 1916, setting parts of Psalms 92, 67, 98 and 103. Each canticle lasts over five minutes. They are difficult, and some passages stretch the young singers, but there is commitment and enthusiasm in the singing, and especially in the music’s many joyful expressions of praise and thanksgiving.