Three years ago, New College Choir recorded Handel’s Messiah with the Academy of Ancient Music for the Naxos label. The CD was unusual, for not only did boys replace the chorus sopranos, they sang the soprano solos as well. “We’re basically trying to make him eat his words,” a New College chorister told me gleefully after a recording session, quoting a world-famous choral conductor who had announced that you can’t do Messiah without women.

For his latest performance, New College director of music Edward Higginbottom retrenched slightly. This time the solos were sung by Swedish soprano Maria Keohane, and her light, clean, clear tone in arias like I know that my redeemer liveth fitted the choral sound precisely.

But, of course, the chorus remained strictly all-male, and so did the other three strong soloists, William Purefoy, Nicholas Mulroy, and Jonathan Sells.

It was immediately clear that New College Choir is in very good voice: from a dance-like And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed to the rapid vocal run down the scale in the final Amen, singing was transparent and sparkling, with the light-toned basses sounding particularly effective. Diction was, needless to say, immaculate.

For this performance, New College joined forces with the European Union Baroque Orchestra. This Woodstock-based training orchestra picks 25 top up-and-coming instrumentalists from all over the EU each year, and 2009 has obviously produced some outstanding players. They responded to every nuance of Higginbottom’s carefully detailed direction with a fresh enthusiasm that you don’t always get from musicians who have performed the work thousands of times before.

The overall approach – a lively reflection of the biblical sentiment and often highly theatrical music that characterises Messiah – was unusually well unified across singers and orchestra. More from EUBO and New College together, please!