A remarkably large number of Popes have chosen Fauré’s Requiem for their funeral music, and so many pontiffs can’t be wrong (infallibility, and all that). This uplifting and gloriously tuneful work is hugely popular, too, lower down the social scale. Doubtless it was the principal draw for many of those at Saturday’s thrilling concert by the Oxford Bach Choir and the English Chamber Orchestra, under conductor Nicholas Cleobury (pictured).

They must surely have been delighted as well, though, by the first (and longer) part of the programme, a powerful, technically accomplished performance of James MacMillan’s cantata Seven Last Words from the Cross. MacMillan himself clearly was, as could be seen when he popped forward, much to the surprise of many present, during the lengthy ovation at the close of this moving, multi-faceted work, which was commissioned by the BBC and first heard during Holy Week in 1994.

Choir and orchestra maintained the emotional heft during the Fauré whose familiar delights emerged fresh-minted in the Sheldonian’s sharp acoustic. The role of horn players Richard Berry and Beth Randell — so dangerously exposed in parts of the work — was scarcely less notable than that of soloists Gerard Collett (baritone) and Jacob Thorn, a boy treble (though not, I think, for much longer) from Magdalen College School. The pure, innocent beauty of Pie Jesu always sounds much better from a treble than a mature, full-throated soprano. This was glorious.