Roman: The Swedish Mass Author: Nicholas Anderson Johann Helmich Roman was a gifted Swedish contemporary of Bach and Handel. Most of his active life was spent in Stockholm although he travelled too, studying music in London where he encountered above all, Handel. Much of Roman's music has a Handelian flavour but in later compositions such as this Svenska Messan (''Swedish Mass'') the prevailing idiom is early classical, albeit anchored to baroque principles. The Mass was Roman's last large-scale choral work and dates from 1752. Its style is a pleasing blend of south Italian melodic warmth, especially noticeable in the solo vocal numbers, and more northerly disciplines evident in strictly contrapuntal movements. But though it recalls at various times Handel, Pergolesi, late Telemann, and the mid eighteenth-century south German and Austrian church composers it could not be mistaken for any of these. On hearing the aria ''Lord God, Lamb of God'' (track 9) it would seem that Roman was familiar with Handel's Messiah, such is the arresting similarity between its opening measures and those of ''He shall feed his flock''. Another such instance occurs in the opening section of the Gloria where Roman quotes from Handel's chorus ''And the glory of the Lord''. The performance has both strong and weak features, the former outweighing the latter. The instrumental playing of the Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble is satisfying throughout. Roman scored the Mass for strings, oboes and bassoon and the resulting texture is preserved with great clarity by these players. Of the three solo vocalists Anne Sofie von Otter is far and away the most accomplished; Hillevi Martinpelto and Mikael Samuelson are technically secure, but their contributions seem pale in colour beside Otter. The weak element in the performance lies in the choral singing, which is not sufficiently disciplined. There are few crisp entries and the voices (33 in number), especially tenors and basses, do not blend well. However, I found myself captivated by the music and by other aspects of the enterprise to an extent whereby I was able to live with a variable choral contribution. In short, this is an interesting issue well worth exploring in spite of reservations. The booklet contains a substantial essay with musical illustrations but, though there are signposts to the text of the Mass the text itself i