Preceded by a pair of highly acclaimed concert performances in Bergen’s Grieg Hall, Mark Elder’s new traversal of Delius’s A Mass of Life (by my reckoning just the fifth it has received under studio conditions) contains much that is genuinely impressive. As well as securing superbly drilled and wholly committed results from his sizeable orchestral and choral forces, Elder steers a commendably purposeful course through Delius’s giant canvas, elucidating both its frequently dense textures and its adventurous chromatic harmonies with penetrating skill. Only in the rarefied air of ‘On the Mountains’ (with its premonitions of The Song of the High Hills) and that magical introduction (with its intertwining oboe, cor anglais and bass oboe) to the fourth movement of Part 2 (‘Heisser Mittag schläft auf den Fluren’) did I feel that the music might have benefited from a more pervasive sense of pantheistic wonder so unforgettably present on the premiere recording from 1952 53 with the RPO under the inimitable Thomas Beecham (responsible for the work’s first complete performance in June 1909 – and very much his own man as regards matters of expression and dynamics).

There can be no grumbles at all, however, with Elder’s outstanding team of vocal soloists. Baritone Roderick Williams is at the top of his game throughout, delivering the German text that the composer assembled from Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra with a rapt conviction, comprehensive understanding and beauty of tone that also marked out his intuitive accounts of Sea Drift and Cynara with Elder and the Hallé (11/13); to hear him at his very best, sample his ravishing way with the truly lovely ‘Lyre Song’ early in Part 2. Both soprano Gemma Summerfield and tenor Bror Magnus Tødenes cope valiantly with Delius’s frequently demanding writing – and praise, too, for contralto Claudia Huckle, who brings a gloriously dusky resonance to ‘O Zarathustra!’ towards the close of Part 1’s substantial centrepiece (beam to 9'58").

The engineering has plenty of heft and certainly packs a dynamic punch but is perhaps a little unkind to string timbre – in which respect I do hanker after some of the beguiling Kingsway Hall glow that was such a feature on Charles Groves’s trusty 1972 version for EMI (essential listening for Benjamin Luxon’s magisterial Zarathustra alone). Both Richard Hickox (Chandos) and David Hill (Naxos) likewise have plenty in their favour, while Norman Del Mar’s live BBC concert relay from May 1971 (on a short-lived Intaglio release) documents a genuine event memorable for its keen conviction and fragrant poetry (what a marvellously sympathetic Delian he was!). Bottom line: any fleeting misgivings aside, this newcomer represents a considerable achievement and augurs well for Elder’s new role as the Bergen PO’s Principal Guest Conductor.