Beethoven’s Mass in C has long suffered, not just from comparison with the supreme Missa solemnis of some 10 years later but from the description of it by Prince Nicolas Esterházy – who commissioned it for the Princess’s name-day – as “ridiculous”. Yet it too is a masterpiece, worthy to be compared with the great sequence of Haydn’s last Masses. It was written at the same white-hot period which spawned the Fourth Symphony and the Fourth Piano Concerto, and though it is wilder than its Haydn predecessors every section is powerfully drawn, as Sir Colin Davis demonstrates. This is more vigorous and intense, less heavy, than his earlier version (Philips – nla) and makes a welcome addition to the catalogue, with the Prisoners’ Chorus from Fidelio as a good supplement, taken from the complete LSO Live recording (3/07).

The singing of the LSO Chorus is incandescent throughout, with high dynamic contrasts so that the fortissimos hit the ear thrillingly; the engineers have managed to get a good, clear and open sound in the notoriously difficult Barbican acoustic. The Gloria opens with thrilling attack, and so does the Credo, with dramatic contrasts for such intimate passages as the “Et incarnatus est” (with its clarinet solo) and with the “Et resurrexit”, introduced not by the full chorus but by the bass, Alistair Miles in glorious voice. The soloists make a first-rate team, Sally Matthews and Sara Mingardo both excellent, and though tenor John Mark Ainsley is not as sweet-toned as once he was, he sings sensitively with clean focus.

Beethoven follows tradition in the final section of the Credo, with a fugato on “Et vitam venturi” but in the final setting of “Dona nobis pacem” he does not follow Haydn who ended his Masses optimistically on a fortissimo, but more logically on a devotional pianissimo – very beautiful.