Traditional Christian teaching excuses the eroticism in the Song of Songs as a metaphor for Christ’s love for the Church. To emphasise a secular interpretation for the night after Valentine’s Day, however, Ensemble Plus Ultra included recitations of four Shakespeare sonnets in its concert in London’s Choral at Cadogan series.

The six singers (two women, four men) specialise in Renaissance music and had a large choice of Latin settings to choose from. Although countertenor David Martin in his introduction unveiled some fascinating musicology, he left unexplained why so many sixteenth-century Roman Catholic composers embraced these sensuous texts, which were ignored by Protestants, and by almost everyone since – perhaps unfortunately as sexuality and the Church has never been more pertinent.