WAR sharpens sensitivities. The only time England was at war with itself, York came under siege, in 1644. Both siege and Civil War inspired some of the most distinctive choral music in our history. Paul Gameson and his Ebors are absolutely the right people to encapsulate this repertory for posterity. They did so on Saturday while launching their disc of the same music.

Much of it was sacred and tended to the reflective. An exception was William Lawes’s catch, See How Cawood’s Dragon Looks (pronounced ‘Corwood’ on disc rather than today’s ‘Caywood’), which recalls Parliamentary forces taking Cawood Castle in 1642.

A fascinating insight came with Lawes’s setting of Psalm 100, in which the common tune to All People That On Earth Do Dwell is interspersed with exceptionally vivid solo (‘verse’) sections that make serious demands on the soloists. Four other psalms of this type also appear on the disc, all done with great verve.

Byrd made an unexpected appearance – he had died in 1623 – with O Lord, Make Thy Servant Charles, the king’s name substituted by John Barnard in 1641 for the original ‘Elizabeth’. So, too, did Purcell (not on the disc), whose Hear My Prayer lacked intensity at the climax.

York Press:

Paul Gameson, director of The Ebor Singers

But this was a tiny blemish in a lovely evening. The Italianate chording of George Jeffreys’s How Wretched Is The State was immaculately smooth, and the soprano soloists – Moira Johnston and Katherine Harper – were fluent in Matthew Locke’s verse anthem, How Doth The City Sit Solitary. But the pièce de résistance was Tomkins’s splendid eight-voice setting of Psalm 86, O God, The Proud Are Risen Against Me.

Letters between Charles and his consort Henrietta-Maria provided a helpful narrative thread, read by Helena Daffern and Jason Darnell. These are not on the disc, which does however include anthems by John Wilson and Henry Lawes, as well as Tomkins’s A Sad Pavan For These Distracted Times, played by David Pipe on a portative organ. Pipe provided stalwart but tactful support throughout the programme, as also on disc.

The disc was recorded at the National Centre for Early Music, in Walmgate, which lends the ensemble a touch more clarity than it enjoyed on the steps of the Quire. Like the live programme, it finds the Ebors on top form. I cannot recommend it highly enough.