Album: Haydn, Die Schöpfung, (Harmonia Mundi)

There's a Fantasia quality to René Jacobs's recording of Die Schöpfung. The contrasts are searing, the speeds variously breakneck or indulgent, the colours almost absurdly intense.

Listen to it with headphones and the contra-bassoon will make you leap out of your chair. For Freiburger Barock-orchester's realisation of Haydn's most vivid orchestral writing, and the ruby-red brilliance of the RIAS Kammerchor, it is certainly worth hearing, though the hyperactive fortepiano soon becomes a bore and the soloists are only so-so.