These contemporary settings of church and other texts have, at their heart, the idea of both contemplation and bringing listeners closer to God. Their origins are different, if the contemplative aesthetic is in common – David Fletcher’s In Rama a voice is heard is an excerpt from a musical drama retelling the Christmas story, whilst Rosemary Broadbent’s And he arose is a setting of verse from ‘The Parable of the Prodigal Son’, commissioned by a group of students for their spiritual teacher. The whole is mostly unaccompanied choral music, occasionally, as with Peter Blumsom’s What is Man?, with piano accompaniment (written by Noel Skinner for child chorus).

The most moving is the setting of Laurence Binyon’s For the Fallen, originally written by Noel Skinner for a Junior school choir in two voices, and here arranged for four voice choir by Matthew Coleridge. It is lovely in its final moments, but there is something a little sweetly major in the opening stanza which seems to skim with too light a touch over the darker import of the words, notwithstanding the development to a deeply touching second stanza.

These short pieces are given jewel-like treatment and a fitting sense of the numinous from the Phoenix Consort under founder and conductor, Adam Whitmore, intimately attentive to articulation, expression and church acoustic. As the title suggests, an hour spent listening to this in some quiet corner will certainly evoke an air of contemplative meditation, whether or not you are of Godly bent.