Granted, Judas Maccabaeus is never likely to be a favourite in Scotland. But Handel’s celebration of ‘Butcher’ Cumberland’s victory over Bonnie Prince Charlie’s forces at Culloden proved an instant hit in 1747, doing wonders for the composer’s bank account; and its cannily calculated mix of bellicose swagger and pastoral grace made it a choral society favourite for two centuries. These days Judas, while not exactly neglected, is often viewed with critical suspicion and/or condescension. If you want Handelian subtlety and psychological depth, look elsewhere. Yet in a performance as committed as this, the oratorio can still hit sympathetic listeners ‘on the drum of the ear’ (Handel’s own phrase).

Judas has not fared particularly well on disc. Best among a smattering of previous versions was the performance directed by Robert King, rooted in the Anglican choral tradition. King includes the numbers Handel added for later performances, among them ‘See, the conqu’ring hero comes’, filched from Joshua, and the ravishing duet and chorus ‘Sion now her head shall raise’, probably the last music Handel composed. Cummings, by contrast, performs the oratorio as it was premiered at Covent Garden in 1747, with a loss of some superb music but a gain in tautness. Where he and his expert Göttingen forces decisively score is in their vivid response to the music’s elemental vigour, slightly muted by King. Although the NDR Choir are slightly backwardly balanced, they sing with incisive attack and a wide dynamic range – grave eloquence, too, in the choral elegies in Part 1. The impetuous ‘Disdainful of danger’, here all nervous excitement, and the pugnacious opening chorus of Part 2, ‘Fall’n is the foe’, are much more dramatic than on the King recording. Cummings chooses apt, mobile tempos (though he gives plenty of space to the threnody ‘Ah! Wretched Israel’) and never lets the rhythms lapse into auto-plod.

All the characters in Judas are generic. Those with the most to sing – the Israelite Woman and the Israelite Man – are anonymous. Yet their arias and duets mine a vein of easy (it’s tempting to add English) tunefulness that gives the score so much of its appeal. Both of Cummings’s chosen singers make their mark. Deanna Breiwick, rather more vibrant than today’s typical Handel soprano, sings with firm, bright tone and free-soaring top notes. Sophie Harmsen fields a warm, evenly produced mezzo and is impressively agile in ‘So rapid thy course’. Crisper diction (consonants are often vague) would have made both their performances even better.

I didn’t much care for the dull-toned, constricted bass in the role of Judas’s brother Simon (Michael George, for King, is in a different class); and countertenor Owen Willetts spoils an otherwise sensitively phrased ‘Father of Heaven’ with a seriously flat initial entry. But Kenneth Tarver, with an ideal blend of velvet and steel in the tone, outstrips all his rivals on disc, even King’s excellent Jamie MacDougall. His ‘Sound an alarm’ has a thrilling, heroic ring, capped by eruption of brass and timpani in mid-course – a stunning Handelian coup, duly played for all its worth.

This new recording would get my vote, just, over King’s, for the overall quality of the singing and its theatrical energy. But the balance of advantage is not all one way. Ideally, I’d want the King recording too, above all for his inclusion of those marvellous later additions to the 1746 score.