When it comes to setting the English language, Henry Purcell has few peers. Yet his songs still seem rarities, more often confined to British labels.

Tim Mead’s recital for the Dutch Pentatone label is therefore doubly welcome. Not only might it spread the word throughout the post-Brexit European Union, but it’s quite simply the finest – and the most finely sung – collection of songs by Purcell and his contemporaries that you are likely to hear.

Mead grew up singing treble in Chelmsford Cathedral and was a choral scholar at King’s College, Cambridge before studying with Robin Blaze at the Royal College of Music. The songs and anthems of the English Restoration, you might say, are part of his DNA.

What appeals to him most about Purcell’s music is its blend of subtlety and restraint. “This isn’t music that shouts to make itself heard or uses tricks to impress, yet still profoundly impacts its listener,” he writes in an astute program note. “It seems as if all emotion has been distilled into perfectly crafted gestures in which...