On disc, at least, Haydn’s life-affirming celebration of an idealised rural world now rivals The Creation in popularity. Amid desirable period-instrument versions from Gardiner (Archiv, 5/92), Jacobs (Harmonia Mundi, A/04) and Harnoncourt (DHM, 10/09), Colin Davis’s 1968 recording, in English, has always held its own for its freshness and exuberant delight in Haydn’s Arcadian vision. Four decades later, with a change of language, Davis has rethought one or two tempi, usually upwards: the “Freudenlied” in Spring now trips more blithely; and the Bacchic revels in Autumn are even more lustily uninhibited. With the LSO on prime form (even if the trumpets can let rip too enthusiastically), he is as responsive as ever both to the zest and humour of this most joyous of oratorios, and to the symphonic/contrapuntal grandeur of movements like the final chorus of Spring. Fugues always unfold with cumulative power. Occasionally Davis’s tempo choice goes against current orthodoxy, as in the trio and chorus in praise of hard work. Yet his spacious conception lends this oft-maligned (not least by Haydn himself) number a nobility unsuspected from the spruce, up-tempo performances one usually hears.

While the 100-strong LSO chorus don’t quite match the tonal firmness of the best professional choirs, they sing with spirit, crisp diction and plenty of punch at climaxes – impressive agility, too, in the riot of fugal laughter that greets the summer sunrise. All three soloists are well chosen. Miah Persson, though occasionally prone to flatness in descending passages, is smilingly elegant in her coloratura aria in Summer and witty without archness in her winter’s tale of aristocratic lust outsmarted, where the choral chuckles sound truly mirthful rather than forced.

Jeremy Ovenden, slightly stretched in alt in his aria about the lost traveller, is especially good in Haydn’s marvellous evocations of the summer dawn and the midday heat, abetted by hushed, veiled LSO strings. Andrew Foster-Williams, a fine classical stylist, is breezily extrovert in the ploughman’s song and the bird-shoot (though the burbling bassoon obbligato is insufficiently audible here), and brings a grave intensity of line to his memento mori in Winter. As ever, the Barbican acoustic lacks an ideal bloom and wind detail can get lost, though the choral- orchestral balance is well judged. While Davis’s 1968 recording is by no means eclipsed, this exhilarating and affectionate LSO performance can be recommended to anyone wanting The Seasons in German, performed with modern instruments on the grand scale we know Haydn relished.