Completed in 1904, when Jan van Gilse was only 23, Eine Lebensmesse was the work that put him on the map at its eventual premiere in 1911. In setting a poem by Richard Dehmel, published in 1897, he was adding his name to the growing number of musicians to be drawn to the German writer’s work, deemed inflammatory in its day: born into a family of theologians, Gilse was being provocative in his choice of text.

Dehmel’s poem, episodic and over-written, is a Nietzschean demand for individualism which argues that, in order to be fulfilled as adults, we must preserve the expressive spontaneity we possessed as children. Such narrative as there is focuses on the desire of an Übermensch-type Hero for a Maiden keen to lose her virginity, and an Orphan girl torn between contrasting active and contemplative lives, embodied in two figures described as ‘experienced Eccentrics’. Choruses of Mothers, Fathers, the Elderly and Children map out the course of life from birth to death.

The score is handsomely late-Romantic, with gestures in the directions of Strauss and Mahler. The Meistersinger apprentices lurk behind a sequence in which the Fathers chatter about self-determination, and the influence of Brahms can be detected in the waltz in which the Mothers discuss the pains of childbirth and the education of children. The scene between the Orphan and the Eccentrics is the high point – an exquisite alto aria, followed by a wonderfully vital trio for alto, tenor and bass.

CPO’s new recording comes from Netherlands Radio. Admirers of Markus Stenz’s Gurrelieder (Hyperion, 8/15) will recognise the similar qualities of textural care and intensity he brings to the proceedings here – beautifully detailed playing and an energy that pulls you in, despite the work’s narrative awkwardness. The choirs blaze away excitingly, though the soloists could more consistent. The Orphan’s aria lies high for Gerhild Romberger, and Roman Sadnik is more persuasive as the contemplative Eccentric than in the Hero’s clarion utterances. Heidi Melton sounds sensual as the Maiden, and Vladimir Baykov makes a very seductive active Eccentric. Not a masterpiece, but fascinating.