It was Johann Herbeck who had initially dismissed Bruckner’s F minor Mass as ‘too long and unsingable’, which is rich coming from the composer, just two years previously, of this 48-minute leviathan. Shortly before the premiere, however, he rushed up to Bruckner and declared the F minor to be comparable with Beethoven’s Missa solemnis as ‘the only two Masses I know’. This verdict is hardly nearer the mark, but in the stylistic space between them Herbeck effortfully squeezed his own work, another missa solemnis in genre, similar in dimensions to Schubert’s sublime pair of late Masses (it was Herbeck who had unearthed and premiered Schubert’s Unfinished) while behaving more like Hummel’s chorally strenuous Mass in D, if lacking his gift for a tune.

The soloists make their absence most sorely felt in the multipart panels of Gloria and Credo, which live up to Hanslick’s praise for the Mass ‘as a uniform whole and on a grand scale, serious and dignified’. It is precisely their uniformity and furrowed-brow solemnity (try the fugue subject of ‘Cum Sancto Spiritu’, 8'30" into the Gloria for a spirit-sapping experience) that distinguish Herbeck as a conductor-composer-epigone from his models in Bruckner and (in the orchestration) Brahms.

For a large symphonic chorus, the Munich Philharmonic Choir acquit themselves well in unfamiliar music which challenges stamina and concentration more than technique. Tuning flags a little in the Benedictus and Agnus Dei: a shame, as they are the most distinctive and inventively relaxed movements. Having unearthed the Mass in Vienna’s National Library, Gerd Schaller directs it with conviction, though a leaner, less devout performance might do the work more favours outside its native land.