Eyebrows were raised when the Scottish Chamber Orchestra played only eight symphonies in Sir Charles Mackerras's Beethoven cycle at this year's Edinburgh Festival. No matter how valid the reasons for bringing in the Philharmonia to play Beethoven's Ninth (Mackerras wanted a larger-scale performance than a bumped-up chamber orchestra could provide), there were those who felt that the SCO had been short-changed.

While not exactly reparation, the performances of The Creation given by the SCO and Mackerras at the opening of orchestra's winter season were, in a sense, ample compensation for a missed Beethoven Nine. Haydn's masterpiece was inspired by the monumental performances of Handel he witnessed in London, and uses a libretto originally intended for Handel himself. But, for all that, it is as much choral symphony as it is homage to the Handelian oratorio. Beethoven's Choral Symphony would have been unimaginable without it.

The dual nature of The Creation, at once looking back to the baroque but also firmly rooted in the classical present, was particularly pronounced in this performance. The baroque-style recitatives and contrapuntal writing contrasted with the rich, symphonic style displayed elsewhere. However, this performance emphasised not technical aspects but the joy with which this most religious of composers approached his subject.

There was plenty of vivid imagery: the brilliant C major blaze of light was, for once, dramatic without being grotesquely out of proportion. There was humour, too, in the trombone blasts of heavy beasts treading the ground. With Peter Rose's luxuriant, powerful bass almost matched in the brightness of soprano Susan Gritton and clarity of tenor Timothy Rose, and a refined-sounding SCO Chorus holding its own, this small-scale performance was just as effective as any that could have been given by massed forces.