Few other conductors on disc convey so happily the drama, symphonic power and spiritual exhilaration of these glorious works than Richard Hickox. He's fully alive to the ominous unease that permeates the great Mass in Time ofWar, but while others strive for maximum dramatic and rhetorical effect, he directs the Mass with a natural, unforced sense of phrase and pace. The playing of Collegium Musicum 90, led by Simon Standage, is polished and athletic, with detail sharply etched, while the chorus sings with fresh tone and incisive attack. The four soloists are well matched in the anxious C minor Benedictus; elsewhere Nancy Argenta brings a pure, slender tone, and a graceful sense of phrase to the Kyrie, while in the 'Qui tollis' Stephen Varcoe deploys his mellow baritone with real sensitivity.
The fill-ups are imaginatively chosen. The two Te Deum settings epitomise the immense distance Haydn travelled during his career, the rococo exuberance and strict species counterpoint of the little-known early work contrasting with the grandeur and massive, rough-hewn energy of the 1799 setting.
The two numbers of incidental music Haydn completed for the play King Alfred in 1796, shortly before embarking on the Mass, are a real collectors' item. Argenta sings the first hymnlike E flat aria with chaste elegance, while choir and orchestra palpably enjoy themselves in the following number, a rollicking, brassy celebration of the Danes' victory over the Anglo- Saxons. Invigorating performances and firstclass recorded sound, with an ideally judged balance between chorus and orchestra.