You will need to wait the best part of three quarters of an hour before getting to the heart of this performance of the Missa solemnis. A live recording (on audio-only Blu-ray disc) of this most perilous of choral epics is always going to be fraught with danger. Here the three massive opening movements have a somewhat ramshackle feel to them. Technically the KlangVerwaltung chamber choir is competent enough – by the end of the Credo it is the orchestra’s intonation that is more obviously shot – but it is too backwardly balanced to make any real impact. As for the conducting, it galvanises more than it gathers; and to be a successful conductor of the Missa solemnis you need to be able to do both. It was for this reason that for many years Otto Klemperer was the work’s interpreter summa cum laude.

It is only when Beethoven ceases shaking his fist at the heavens that the magus-like Enoch zu Guttenberg and his four excellent soloists come fully into their own. The work’s contemplative concluding movements draw a more assured quality of music-making than the preceding three, with the Benedictus the performance’s evident highlight.