Newcomers should make haste to track 6 for a pleasant surprise. Here they will encounter Samuel Barber's indestructible Adagio in its alternative and mellifluous 1967 vocal guise, set to the text of the Agnus Dei. Peter Broadbent's Joyful Company of Singers acquit themselves extremely well. Also to be particularly relished are the exquisite Op 42 pairing of Twelfth Night and To be sung on the water, the carefree lilt of The monk and his cat and, above all, the majestic, strikingly ambitious 1938 setting of Gerald Manley Hopkins's sonnet, God'sGrandeur (perhaps the single most impressive achievement on the disc). Further delights are provided by Barber's countryman and contemporary, William Schuman. The concise, beautifully sculpted Perceptions (1982) are settings of choice aphorisms from the pen of Walt Whitman, while the Mail Order Madrigals (1972) wittily utilise the flowery prose drawn from advertisements contained within a Sears and Roebuck catalogue of 1897. A most attractive issue, in short, excellently produced and engineered.