ANYONE can sing loudly. Very few can sing really softly. The boys and men of the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge are a glorious exception. That was the lasting memory from their English programme in Ampleforth Abbey under their conductor Stephen Cleobury: exquisitely shaped cadences that were superlatively soft.

The abbey’s lively acoustic needs to be treated with caution. In three anthems by Orlando Gibbons, there was consistent vitality, rather than weightiness, in the complex rhythms of See, the Word is Incarnate, as in their other verse anthem, This is the Record of John, whose text was cleanly projected by choir and soloist alike. Graceful accompaniment by the viol consort Fretwork further smoothed the path.

As composer in residence, Judith Weir was present to hear her carol – originally commissioned by King’s – Illuminare, Jerusalem and her setting of a mediaeval Latin hymn, Ascending into Heaven, whose closing phrases evaporated magically into the ether. Both conjured a keen sense of anticipation.

Four of Parry’s Six Songs of Farewell framed the second half beautifully. The dramatic contrasts in Lord, Let Me Know Mine End (from Psalm 39) were breath-taking, its final pages distilling the quintessence of humility. A spacious account of Naylor’s Vox Dicentis and, appropriately here, Elgar’s majestic Great is the Lord, alongside Vaughan Williams’s setting of Psalm 90, filled out a deeply satisfying evening.

Solos by organ scholars Henry Websdale and Donal McCann were the icing on the cake.