This must have been one of the briskest performances that Messiah has received over the past 175 years in Huddersfield.

This is largely accounted for by the decision to trim a recitative, airs and a chorus from the final stages of the work, but it seemed throughout that conductor David Angus insisted on rapid tempos, so that there was little let up in the pace, apart from some cadences where the beat was suspended to allow soloists to execute attractive ornamentation.

This no-nonsense approach might have led to a loss of monumentality in the music, but this was a propulsive account of Handel’s great work that was definitely worth hearing. And the singers of the Choral Society were fully up to any challenges posed by quicker tempos and brisker rhythms.

They had some great moments, including a thrilling crescendo in “And He shall purify”, some excellent enunciation in “For unto us a child is born”, nimble singing in “His yoke is easy” and “He trusted in God”, plus a genuinely exultant shout at the start of “Let us break their bonds asunder”.

The operatic provenance of the conductor, the soloists and the band – the Orchestra of Opera North- led us to expect a dramatic performance, and on the whole, that is what we got – but not in a gloopy, romantic way. In fact, the orchestral playing, as signalled in the opening sinfony, was often quite stern and unsentimental, and throughout there was an insistence on deft rhythms and, as already remarked, tempos that seemed to be faster than usual (whether or not a metronome would bear that out).

Many in the audience would have regretted the loss of material such as “O death where is thy sting?” and “If God be for us”, and it could argued that the cuts – leading to a very short Part Three – weakened the scriptural exegesis of the piece. But the final stages of this Messiah had a real propulsive quality.

Drama of a more operatic nature came from the soloists, all of whom injected some beautifully executed ornamentation in their arias. The soprano was Elizabeth Llewellyn, who first performed Messiah with the Choral Society when she was a very late substitute in 2012. Back again as a first-choice soloist, she has gained even more dramatic power and musicality, allied to a commanding stage presence, immediately obvious in her opening recitatives.

The most moving solo passages in Messiah are probably those given to the alto. Handel originally composed these for an actress who sang, rather than a pure singer, and this helps to account for the emotional impact of airs such as “He was despised”, performed here with clarity and directness of expression – plus some beautiful ornamentation – by the mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnston.

The bass was Neal Davies- back for a second year in succession and as commanding as before in airs such as “Why do the nations so furiously rage together?”.

The tenor was Stuart Jackson, intensely rhetorical in his opening “Comfort ye” recitative and capable throughout of unleashing monuments of drama, such as his aggressive enunciation of key words such as “break” and “dash” in his final air, “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron”.