From its opening bars, John Eliot Gardiner's interpretation of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis established a contrast between worldly striving and spiritual consolation. With his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and the Monteverdi Choir, the music began with the celestial calm of the Kyrie Eleison. After this invocation of piety, the soloists depicted a world of human desire with their appeal, "Christe eleison" - "Christ have mercy upon us". The rest of the performance thrillingly amplified this dramatic opposition.

The Missa Solemnis is anything but solemn. One of the richest affirmations of faith in the repertory, it is also one of the most various and chaotic. Beethoven sums up entire traditions of sacred music in his setting, from the austerity of plainchant to the contrapuntal splendour of the baroque and the operatic contrasts of classicism.

Gardiner realised the structural and expressive excesses of the score with shocking vividness. The Gloria ended in a tumult of extremes as apparently final flourishes were followed by yet faster music and yet higher vocal lines. The Credo continued this transcendent trajectory, and the sound and fury of dense counterpoint culminated in a lyrical fugue.

However, it was only at the end of the piece, in the Dona Nobis Pacem, that the music achieved a transfiguration of the human world into the divine. Accompanied by weird fanfares for timpani and brass, the choir and soloists triumphantly proclaimed their desire for peace. These were both the sounds of human accomplishment and the symbols of a celestial victory. In this performance, Beethoven's music offered a vision of how, through sheer force and willpower, humanity may attain transcendence.

For all the violent power of much of the performance, the lyrical passages were just as impressive. The four soloists were at their most sumptuous in the Agnus Dei, with outstanding singing from soprano Luba Orgonasova and alto Nathalie Stutzmann. The choir dealt brilliantly with Beethoven's tortuous vocal writing, making it seem natural and idiomatic, and Gardiner inspired the orchestra to fiercely committed playing. It was a performance that connected the extremes of sacred and secular, revealing the perennial relevance of this visionary work.