Choral and instrumental passages are impressively disciplined and well-characterised throughout...There are countless recordings of this work from which to choose, but every choral music enthusiast would be well-advised to add this dynamic, imaginative new reading to their collection. It is truly exceptional.

As the starting point, the music is taken entirely on its own terms – essentially Pichon’s personal vision – and so the well-rehearsed tropes of established ‘period’ vocabulary are quietly jettisoned for the freshly minted...This B minor Mass is really up there with the very best.

In this rendering Bach’s magnificent work might lose a little nobility, but it certainly gains in human drama and excitement...The choir of 30 singers is occasionally swamped in the sound balance by the 33 instrumentalists, but it would take much more than that to stop me reaching for this recording whenever I needed a big Bach uplift and a shot in the arm.

Raphaël Pichon makes the ancient sound urgently, utterly contemporary: This is the kind of thing that we listen to classical music for.