Richard Danielpour is a composer of prolific accomplishment. He has contributed to the realms of concert and operatic music with skilful assurance, employing essentially tonal means to bring immediacy to whatever narrative he builds. His canvas is enormous in The Passion of Yeshua, an oratorio about the last day in the life of Jesus (Yeshua in Hebrew) with texts in Hebrew and English compiled by the composer from sacred sources. This recording by the work’s original performers is a vibrant realisation that reveals both the power and limitations of Danielpour’s creation.

The piece, which runs an hour and 43 minutes, is cast in 14 sections that, like predecessors in the genre, tell the story and comment upon it. Danielpour makes bold use of choral forces to evoke events leading to the death of Yeshua and to convey the spirituality of key moments. It is in these passages of massed singing and biting declamation that the oratorio achieves urgency and eloquence. The fervour of the choral writing and vibrant colours Danielpour paints in the orchestra reflect a composer in full command of his art.

But sections between these dynamic episodes are tempered by pacing that is generally unvaried, leisurely and short of dramatic tension. Many of the Narrator’s lines are so sedate that the impact of the text is diminished. Danielpour’s music is expertly constructed and often affecting, even if it tends to sound familiar, with nods to Bernstein’s rhythmic vitality, Walton’s jauntiness and Brahms’s mournful warmth. Among the score’s finest pages are the solos and duets of the three female characters – Yeshua’s mother and sister and Mary Magdalene – sung with lustrous expressivity by the soprano Hila Plitmann and mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges. The men also are excellent, from Kenneth Overton’s noble Yeshua and Matthew Worth’s articulate Narrator to Timothy Fallon’s vehement Pilate and Kefa and James K Bass’s sonorous Kayafa.

JoAnn Falletta is a forceful champion of the score, which she shapes with sensitive and potent authority. The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus and UCLA Chamber Singers are splendid collaborators.