Equinox is an outstanding disc: the choice of music is inspired, the singing superb, and the interpretations stay long in the memory. The programme is based on composer-in-residence Jonathan Dove’s cycle The Passing of the Year, with the composer at the piano. His descriptive writing not only enhances the texts but has a compelling intensity. You won’t regret buying this.

At the centre of this beautifully produced recording is Jonathan Dove’s substantial cycle The Passing of the Year…Whatever the work loses in collective force and impact it gains in textural clarity, purity of intonation and the blowsy beauty of Voces8’s sopranos, who gild Dove’s fecund, at times rather over-ripe writing with the radiance it demands.