With bright, forwardly-balanced sound, this is a period-performance recording of Haydn’s great oratorio which even more than the fine versions I have listed above gives a sharp, clean focus to the most complex textures, bringing out inner detail. Fearlessly exploiting the widest dynamic range, Thomas Hengelbrock, with his excellent team of singers and players, takes an equivalently clear, forthright view of the score. He regularly adopts a distinctive clipped style which is consistently refreshing, even if in places he runs the risk of sounding relentless.

Early in his career, Hengelbrock worked with Harnoncourt in the Vienna Concentus Musicus, and later joined the Amsterdam Bach Soloists. He co-founded the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra in 1985, and in 1991 founded the chorus on this disc, the Balthasar-Neumann Choir, named after the German Baroque architect, following that up four years later with the Balthasar-Neumann Ensemble. Since 2000 he has also taken on the role of music director of the Vienna Volksoper, and includes modern music in his concerts with the Ensemble. His recordings have concentrated on relatively rare repertory, but here he takes on the challenge of The Creation.

In comparisons, Weil adopts speeds just as fast, quite often even faster, but manages to lift the rhythms more than Hengelbrock. Brüggen and Gardiner, too, bring out the joy of Haydn’s inspiration more infectiously, where Hengelbrock is above all crisp and purposeful. The choral passage which rounds off Uriel’s first aria, with its reference to ‘eine neue Welt’ (‘a new created world’), lacks something of the exhilaration the others bring, and so does the closing chorus of Part 1, ‘Die Himmel erzählen’ (‘The heavens are telling’), though the soloists’ entries are delightfully delicate.

These are all young singers, chorus as well as soloists; Johannes Mannov as Raphael and Steve Davislim as Uriel are ideally clean in attack and firmly focused, bringing out the meaning of the text with exceptional clarity, helped by the close balance. Simone Kermes as Gabriel has a bright, clear soprano, well-suited to period performance, very boyish in timbre, though in the great aria, ‘Nun beut die Flur’ (‘With verdure clad’) she tries a little too hard to sound expressive, hardly consistent with Hengelbrock’s clipped accompaniment. Dorothee Mields, who sings the role of Eve in the third section of the oratorio, has a similarly boyish voice; Locky Chung as Adam is aptly lighter in timbre than Mannov as Raphael, and suitably youthful.

Though I would not suggest this in preference to the other listed versions as a general recommendation, it will greatly please those who value a bright, clear reading of this masterpiece.