Our senior university’s end-of-year fling in York Minster has gradually become a much-anticipated occasion, and Wednesday evening was no exception.

A huge, largely partisan attendance greeted Mozart’s Mass in C minor and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

The Mozart is a rarity, for obvious practical reasons. Its Credo is incomplete, its Agnus Dei non-existent. Stylistically it harks back to Handel.

But for all its unevenness, it is well worth dusting off. Peter Seymour and his 220-voice choir certainly thought so, and brought plenty of conviction to choruses that often demand five parts and sometimes as many as eight.

The lion’s share of its solo work goes to the two sopranos. Their contributions were mixed. Rachel Nicholls, seemingly unhappy in this slippery acoustic, had edgy tone, her top notes overblown. Marina Theodoropoulou was the more twitchy, but coped well with the testing coloratura of the Laudamus Te.

The solo quartet’s response to the Benedictus verged on the operatic.

The orchestra came into its own in the Beethoven, which suffered only from a general lack of spaciousness.

Its opening was rather driven, missing the “maestoso” Beethoven demanded. The scherzo was certainly exciting, even if a little timpani goes a long way in this building.

Sterling work from woodwinds and horns made the slow movement a poignant reflection amid the surrounding turbulence. Choral lines were forcefully drawn in the finale, a triumph of stamina for voices and orchestra alike. Both were superbly drilled.