This is a pleasing mini-concert, not least because it’s a special pleasure when a Haydn symphony is chosen which isn’t from the ‘London’ series. In this case it’s No 85, from the sequence of six he composed for Paris and which supposedly became a favourite of Marie Antoinette, leading to its being memorialised as La Reine. It’s given a bright and alert performance by a band (strings number 8-6-4-4-2) probably closer to the size of Haydn’s own at Eszterháza than to the orchestral behemoths of Paris, where violins alone numbered 40 or more. Harry Christophers draws out plenty of detail, and ensemble and intonation slip only occasionally given that this is a live performance; speeds are brisk, the only question mark being over the Minuet, taken fashionably (too) fast and with no contrasting tempo for the Trio. For greater regality in this symphony and a keener appreciation of its nervy intensity, turn to Thomas Fey, who chooses a more apposite Minuet tempo and applies the brakes to amusing effect for its Ländler-like Trio. The key attractions on this disc, however, are two of Mozart’s most popular sacred works. Teresa Wakim is an agile, light-toned soprano in Exsultate, jubilate, the motet composed for the castrato Venanzio Rauzzini (whose portrait hangs in Bath, Somerset, where he is buried); her biography lists Pamina and Galatea among her roles, which gives an idea of the tone she conveys in this minor masterpiece.

The Coronation Mass was Mozart’s last-but-one setting before his break from Salzburg service and the great unfinished sacred works of his Vienna years. Tempi here seem somewhat deliberate in the clear, analytical acoustic of Symphony Hall, Boston. The advantages of this are that every word can be heard and Mozart’s busy string lines are clearly delineated. The down side is perhaps that the grandeur of the work is compromised. Peter Neumann (whose recordings of Mozart’s complete Masses have recently been gathered together into a single box) may shade Christophers on tempo only slightly in the faster music, yet his more spacious acoustic and what sound like slightly larger forces bring out the Coronation’s swagger to greater effect and distil greater mystery in the ‘Incarnatus’ and ‘Crucifixus’ of the Credo. By comparison, Christophers and the Boston Handel and Haydn Society sound more chaste in music that is, after all, the direct Austrian descendant of mid-century Neapolitan opera.