The sound stage of this studio recording mirrors the unusual stage disposition designed by René Jacobs for the concert tour that took place immediately prior to the sessions in May 2019. Sopranos and basses to the left, tenors and altos to the right, the orchestra between and the soloists above and behind them, though never blocked off by a wall of sound. In fact, one of the recording’s remarkable qualities – there are a few – is the telling detail of the textual response to a Mass-setting in which every word matters.

Take the Gloria, launched with more of a joyful noise than the brassy, top-line swagger of many versions. When Jacobs follows convention rather than the score in relaxing for ‘Et in terra pax’, he puts a spring into the dotted-note articulation and a swelling legato for the answering phrase: earth and peace in harmony, if not of one accord. When sopranos and tenors sing ‘Adoramus te’, the altos and basses join them three beats later as if anxious not to be overlooked: ‘we, too, adore thee’. A rustic organ flourish brings festive cheer to ‘Glorificamus te’. The gracious wind-band introduction to ‘Gratias agimus’ shares a gemütlich contentment with Mozart’s serenades.

While rethinking every line and phrase for himself, Jacobs has not, by and large, pursued eccentric solutions to the degree that makes for uneven listening to his Bach and Mozart. I don’t follow his mannerist shading of the Gloria’s final shout for joy but I like the artless cadenza for the soprano and alto soloists at the climax of the Benedictus. All four soloists are well matched and coached – try the urgent humility of their petition at the start of the Sanctus or their radiant, light vibrato for ‘Et incarnatus’. By the standards of the finest recordings, Johannes Weisser sounds a touch cautious and cautious in his Agnus solo, and there is little in the way of a true pianissimo at points such as the close of the Credo – often a deficiency of period-instrument accounts with their more limited dynamic palette – but otherwise Jacobs has transferred a feel for the immensity of Beethoven’s vision from concert hall to studio.

You don’t have to read the booklet interview, but it helps. Jacobs approaches the third abortive martial interlude in the ‘Dona nobis’ as a musical joke, ‘full of humour’. Though he doesn’t, he could have cited musical precedents in the Scherzos of the Fourth and Seventh Symphonies, or expressive parallels in the late-Shakespearean humour of the Diabelli Variations and the ‘Muss es sein’ finale of Op 135. Does Beethoven’s sacred architecture harbour a musical Lincoln Imp? I’m not convinced, or not yet, but all devotees of the Missa will want to put their preconceptions to the test.