AS THE CHOIR’S tenor began his solo it was as though the music was rising up to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel like incense. This was The Sixteen, performing Sir James MacMillan’s intense, dramatic and ultimately consoling setting of the thirteenth-century Stabat Mater hymn, which expresses a desire for a share in the sufferings of Mary and Jesus. At one point the tenor sang: “May I be defended by you on the Day of Judgement.” Hearing that line while looking up at Michelangelo’s fresco of the Last Judgement – with its iconic depiction of humanity’s final reckoning – had the hairs on the back of my neck tingling.