The Spanish composer Cristóbal de Morales, who was basically Palestrina’s cooler predecessor at the papal chapel, was a big deal in the mid-16th century. His music traveled as far as Mexico and Peru, which for the 1500s is the equivalent of going viral without the internet. Now, his choral works are getting a second act, thanks to the chamber choir De Profundis. This ensemble, with its all-adult-male lineup, is determined to replicate the authentic choral sound of mainland Europe at the time - because nothing says authenticity like a bunch of dudes in modern suits pretending it’s 1550.

Their latest release is the third in a planned series of 12 recordings covering all of Morales’s masses and magnificats. The Magnificat Secundi Toni, a finely wrought piece written for Rome, starts modestly but blossoms into six vocal lines by the end, like a musical flower that took its time. Bookending it are two mass settings based on L’Homme Armé, a song that dates back to the fall of Constantinople and apparently inspired a whole tradition of mass settings - over 40 survive from this period. Because nothing says “medieval earworm” like a tune that spawned its own liturgical genre.

The two masses use the song in different modes, with the five-part version being more mellifluous and less somber than the four-part one. To add to the richness, the five-part mass brings in an organ and a bajón - a medieval precursor to the bassoon, because apparently the Renaissance was all about bassoons before they were cool. Robert Hollingworth, who also directs I Fagiolini, conducts with precision and sonorousness, ensuring these 500-year-old tunes sound as fresh as the day they were first sung in a drafty Roman chapel.