Polyphony - Bruckner's Mass in E minor (Hyperion)

It is perhaps let down by the venue's occasionally hazy acoustic and especially by a noticeable echo. But the performance is strong and characterful: beautifully sung by Polyphony and subtly, imaginatively accompanied by the Britten Sinfonia's wind band.

Polyphony have a few fleeting moments of questionable intonation, and one high lying passage in the Agnus Dei doesn't work, but the group sing with ravishing, lustrous tone throughout and phrase and colour magnificently. Their dynamic and dramatic range is great and tension is continually racked up under the baton of Stephen Layton, though never at the expense of vocal purity, profundity of expression or dignity of delivery.

The Mass, composed in 1866, is indebted to the influence of Palestrina, and the acoustic can problematically lose clarity from individual contrapuntal or melismatic lines, blurring them into a burnished but imprecise block of sound; Bruckner's clear, monumental melodic, harmonic arches can seem curiously undefined. But the echo gives the performance a phosphorescent edge - a sense of warmth and inner-illumination - and, when coupled with such heartfelt, refulgent singing from the choir, it greatly endears itself to the ear. Bruckner's religious intensity is not just aurally beguiling, but also dangerously seductive.

The generously filled CD pairs the towering Mass with seven Motets. Locus iste is a gem - worth noting are the choir's innocent, childlike purity of tone at the opening, the basses' instantly dramatic inaestimabiles, the evocative 'dying-out' on factus est and the lingering, perfectly breathed final cadence.

Elsewhere, the CD intelligently programmes complementary works: hence the chromatically-inflected Vexilla Regis stands next to Os iusti, a work containing no sharps or flats; an effective stylistic contrast is made. When so thoughtfully melded together and so well sung, this is a disk that cannot help but tempt.

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