"An oratorio for jolly folk" was Schumann's description of his first large-scale choral work. Europe in the mid-19th century must have been full of such cheerful people, for Das Paradies und die Peri, first performed in 1843, became one of the composer's most frequently performed works. Nowadays it is rarely heard. Simon Rattle's performance, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and a recording-class roster of soloists, was, I reckon, only the third in London in the past 35 years. Though the work may not appeal to contemporary tastes, it contains far too much good music to be consigned to obscurity.

The problem lies in the story itself, which Schumann took from Thomas Moore's oriental romance Lalla Rookh, about a fairy who is barred from entering paradise until she can redeem herself through a selfless act. It is cloying stuff, which gets increasingly sanctimonious as it reaches its predictable end. Yet that hardly matters, for the best of the score is glorious, with echoes not only of the orchestral music and songs Schuman had composed in the previous two years, but of a range of 19th-century composers - Mendelssohn and Weber especially - who served as models while he found his bearings in a new medium.

Rattle's performance showed how well Schumann succeeded in that first attempt. It was the best possible act of restitution, fired with early Romantic fervour and lit up by incisive detail from the OAE and its Choir. Sally Matthews took the role of the Peri, steering clear of sugary sentiment but swallowing far too many words. If mezzo Bernarda Fink was the pick of the soloists, the others - Kate Royal, Mark Padmore, Timothy Robinson and David Wilson-Johnson - were also exemplary.