I found this live Missa solemnis both moving and uplifting. With an average age of around 20, the 70-strong Audi Jugendchorakademie must be the youngest group ever to record this cruelly demanding work. When Beethoven is at full throttle you might crave more heft, especially in the lower voices. The altos are drowned by the orchestral flood in their opening ‘Gloria in excelsis’ – who would dare whisper that this low alto entry was a miscalculation on Beethoven’s part? Unsurprisingly in a live performance, the sopranos tire towards the end of the Credo and ‘Dona nobis pacem’. Yet this is to quibble. Far more important are the freshness and lucidity of the choral textures, and the choir’s responsiveness to Beethoven’s extreme dynamic markings. Youth emphatically pays dividends, with no wobblers or screechers among the sopranos, or would-be Siegfrieds in the tenor department.

In the booklet conductor Jérémie Rhorer stresses his desire to distance himself from a ‘post-Romantic aesthetic’, in which tempos grew ‘slower and heavier’. His conception of the Missa solemnis – in sonority and tempo choices – is akin to the scorchingly dramatic performances by John Eliot Gardiner (Archiv, 3/91; SDG, 2/14). He even goes beyond Gardiner in the fastest, most frenzied account I’ve ever heard of the ‘In gloria Dei Patris’ fugue. Here and elsewhere the choir are pushed to the edge. But they cling on. The opening of the Credo marches with an almost jaunty spring in its step; and rarely can the Resurrection and Ascension have been proclaimed with such unbridled euphoria as here. Beethoven marks the Handelian ‘Pleni sunt coeli’ Allegro pesante. Rhorer’s youthful sopranos fly off at an allegro vivacissimo.

In softer dynamics the choral sonorities have a touching quality of gentleness – I’m tempted to add, innocence. The flowing Kyrie exudes a simple tenderness and humility. Like Gardiner and the more reverential Harnoncourt (Sony, 8/16), Rhorer is especially attentive to the beauties and audacities of Beethoven’s orchestration. The pungent period woodwind, valveless brass and dry-rattling timpani consistently catch the ear: the deliciously ‘woody’ clarinet ushering in the ‘Gratias’; the luminous wind halo at ‘Qui propter nos homines’; or the chill glint of the natural horns and trombones that enhance the archaic aura of the Sanctus.

The solo quartet fulfil Rhorer’s desire for singers capable of both quasi-operatic drama and intimate expression. Despite occasional clashes of vibrato, they balance well with each other and with the chorus. Tenor Daniel Behle, clear and firm in ‘Et homo factus est’, tends to scoop up to notes. Like most mezzos, the impressive Varduhi Abrahamyan – an Amneris-Eboli voice – sounds more anguished than fearful when the sounds of war invade the ‘Dona nobis pacem’ (Beethoven’s marking is timidamente). Tareq Nazmi’s teak bass, gravely sonorous in the Agnus Dei, lacks the ideal lyrical grace for the Benedictus. But soprano Chen Reiss is consistently superb, riding the full orchestra without strain and effortlessly floating her high lines in the Benedictus, in tandem with Jonathan Stone’s pure, seraphic violin.

In sum, Rhorer’s Missa solemnis may not have quite the choral infallibility of the similarly conceived Gardiner performances. In its favour are youthful freshness and eagerness, plus a fine solo quartet and illuminating orchestral textures. Other conductors, not least Harnoncourt, convey more mystical inwardness. But more than most, Rhorer and his performers vividly catch both the lyrical pathos and the divine delirium crucial to the work that Beethoven cherished above all others.