They mix cantatas and trio sonatas with a judicious flair…Nothing is over-stated or under-nurtured; and Meunier always finds a deeply human dimension to Buxtehude’s piety that taps into the bürgerlich bonhomie of the sonatas. Rich, lively and truthful, the recorded sound consummates a seductively considered disc that pretty much never puts a foot wrong. Hanseatic heaven!

This is music of expressive variety and flexibility, ideally suited to the skills of Vox Luminis, whose name on a release these days is enough in itself to spark a tingle of anticipation. They do not disappoint, charting the emotional contours of Buxtehude’s music with exquisite understanding and demonstrating their now familiar deep but lucid choral blend, out of which expertly executed solos emerge and return.

Buxtehude’s solo-verse settings are definite highlights. Bass Sebastian Myrus’s ‘Trotz dem alten Drachen’ shifts nimbly between the spikily defiant and the self-assured...The story of Bach’s visit to Lübeck has been passed down the ages, and it’s wonderful finally to be able to hear for ourselves what all the fuss was about – pace The Proclaimers, these are definitely performances worth hiking three hundred miles to hear!