Performances of William Byrd’s Great Service are not as frequent as you might expect. Especially not in the shape it took at the splendid opening concert of this year's festival, given by the Gabrieli Consort under Paul McCreesh.

The “Great” is the Rolls-Royce of Tudor services. Its length does not easily fit it for liturgical use. In cathedral choirs, we would expect a large treble line with a relative sprinkling of lower voices. But Byrd would have used many fewer on the top line; just like the Gabrielis, whose ladies were outnumbered almost two to one by the tenors and basses.

The result was a hugely satisfying blend, dark and rich. While many of the canticle texts are soberly set, albeit with much imitation, Byrd really lets his hair down in the Glorias and Amens, where the familiar words do not need to be heard. The Gabrielis took the hint.

The elaborate Amen of the Benedictus had a wonderful flourish, and the cross-rhythms of the Glorias to the evening canticles danced with infectious excitement. Solo groupings throughout were exquisitely handled.

Two new commissions from Jonathan Dove brought mixed results. Care-charmer Sleep, to a Samuel Daniel poem, was a powerful prayer, sometimes anguished, that dissolved into a lovely peace. His treatment of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 33 was less obvious, the test splintering into occasional sunbeams. Plangent plainsong and magical motets by Gabriel Jackson and Eric Whitacre completed a satisfying, if somewhat brief, evening.