A new partnership between the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and Glossa promises new and reissued recordings by students, professors and alumni of the celebrated early music conservatory. Anthony Rooley (professor of lute), Evelyn Tubb (professor of singing), the orchestra La Cetra (graduates) and the college’s choir present a premiere recording of William Hayes’s The Passions, an intriguing ode composed for the University of Oxford’s honorary degree ceremony in 1750 (17 years earlier a similar occasion gave rise to Handel’s Athalia). The poem recounts the story of the lovely young maiden Music, whose performing enthralls the different Passions (Melancholy, Cheerfulness, Hope, Despair, Anger, and so on) until they cannot tolerate listening any longer, but seize her instruments and take turns to sing for their own supremacy; eventually Reason intervenes and points out that all of the opposing Passions shall “jointly please” if each is assigned “a temper’d Part”.

Although esteemed highly for several decades, The Passions fell into neglect until Rooley conducted its first modern revival in 2003. It has been his labour of love since he first inspected the manuscript in the British Library and could “hardly believe what I was seeing…a whole chapter of English music that I have been ignorant of – one full of vitality, colour, humour, philosophy, and summing up the restless exploratory energy of the 18th century”.

The quarreling Passions perform arias in styles entirely suitable to their temperaments and the qualities of Hayes’s composition emerge impressively in this excellent performance. Lisandro Abadie’s voice is ideally supple for Anger’s indignant word-painting, Despair is superbly enacted by tenor David Munderloh, and Ulrike Hofbauer’s light soprano presents a captivating Hope. The first section of Revenge’s trumpet aria “He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down” is shamelessly constructed upon a very obvious Handelian motif (admirers of Alexander’s Feast will need no further clue), but Hayes also incorporates some extraordinary surprises and alternations in the orchestral texture, style, and ensuing chorus. Countertenor Sumihito Uesugi combats bravely with Jealousy’s schizophrenia but a good female singer would probably have delivered the stormy passages with greater imposition. La Cetra’s muted strings, solo bassoon and horn provide beguiling support to Melancholy; Evelyn Tubb’s voice is fragile but her interpretations are highly dramatised. Hofbauer’s Cheerfulness is accompanied irresistibly by a pair of hunting horns, and the ensuing interplay with Tubb and the chorus is witty and lean. Sweetly elegant strings aptly help Reason to restore civilised order. Performance practice sceptics might take a dim view of occasional clattering tambourines and copious harp continuo; but Rooley’s direction conveys the narrative of the ode astutely and demonstrates that Hayes’s imaginative music is long overdue such tender loving cares.