‘All 77 choruses in Lento and Adagio in one sitting: that I have not yet learnt to endure,” complained Clara Schumann, having walked out of Bach’s St Matthew Passion. Even in Bach’s home city of Leipzig, audiences – and maybe performers too – could not cope with the complete work. When Mendelssohn, a passionate devotee of the Matthew Passion, conducted the work there in 1841, it was significantly cut.

Oxford Harmonic Society chose that 1841 version for its performance. According to my back-of-an-envelope calculations, Mendelssohn removed 13 recitatives, arias and chorales from Bach’s masterpiece. Try hard though they did to convince us otherwise, Oxford Harmonic could not disguise the fact that some of Bach’s major changes of texture and mood had gone – including the glorious, soaring aria If the tears on my cheeks (the performance was sung in English). On the plus side, Mendelssohn’s addition of clarinets to To all men and Ah Golgotha! added luminosity – enhanced here by beautiful playing. There was a memorable solo, too, from Mariette Richter in Have Mercy Lord on me, with the Orchestra of Stowe Opera and organist David Langdon providing sterling support throughout.

As the work got under way, conductor Robert Secret unveiled a properly expansive reading of Come, ye daughters: Mendelssohn retained Bach’s use of double choir and orchestra, and ripieno chorus. There was a slight feeling, both here and at times later on, that Oxford Harmonic’s singers were working near the limit, and that clarity of words had been sacrificed as a result. But crowd scenes were attacked with vigour, and the quieter chorales were magic. As the Evangelist, William Petter provided the vital narrative drive, while Quentin Hayes had the occasional strained moment as Christ. There was meaty support from the other soloists, Anne-Louise Costello, Richard Poyser, and Tim Lawrence, in a performance that, whatever its drawbacks, never failed to completely involve you in the Passion story.