Critic Eduard Hanslick was disparaging. He described Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross as an “empty, insignificant play of notes” and “content-less clichés”. Haydn intended differently: “Each setting of the text is expressed only by instrumental music, but in such a way that it creates the most profound impression even on the most inexperienced listener.” Yet Hanslick’s opinion may resonate today; because in a largely secular, even anti-Christian society, how profound an impression could wordless settings of biblical Words create? Frans Brüggen has his own solution; he has not filled the spaces between the Words with commentary, but with short Intermezzi commissioned from Ron Ford (b1959) as “a worthy musical substitute for no music”.

These 21st-century miniatures are hypnotic, compulsive enough to connect with a modern audience. But they may also be a bone of contention, as may Brüggen’s omission of all repeats. Nevertheless, his interpretation is on an impressive scale, the recording excellently balanced, bass-lines deep and clear. It isn’t difficult to feel that with these forces – for which the work was originally composed – the “profound impression” Haydn wished to create encompassed a spiritual experience.

The Leipzig Quartet do not offer a similar experience because they don’t transcend the limitation of a medium unsuited to conveying programmatic content of this nature. Technically the music holds no terrors for them, but the terror implied in the music is glossed over by supremely cultivated playing that barely penetrates the surface. The first Word, “Father forgive them”, sets the scene, let down not by a tempo too swift for Largo but by a conception that replaces poignancy with sensuousness. Brüggen is also swift but his shaping of notes conjures an appropriate mood; and in “I thirst” he discerns through a perfectly paced Adagio the unheeded cry for water and the subsequent anguish of abandonment. The Leipzigers overlook the message of need. Their bland beauty throughout, faithfully reproduced in SACD, tenders an aesthetic experience but no invitation to engage with or meditate on the numerous layers of pain at the heart of the matter.