Medieval and Renaissance specialist Jordi Savall's forays into Classical-era and even Romantic music have not been greeted with the universal rapture accorded most of his early music recordings, but he is one of the great conductors of our time, and none is without points of interest. This one, with his choir La Capella Reial de Catalunya and orchestra Le Concert des Nations, is perhaps typical. For someone trained in the earlier eras of Western music, Savall has a perhaps surprising dramatic sense, and the opening sections of Haydn's Die Schöpfung, Hob. 21/2, especially the Präludium representing Chaos, are extremely compelling. The ensemble is small, with a choir of 20 and 16 string players, and this does let Savall trace many details of orchestration and instrumental writing that are lost in thundering performances. Savall, or someone in his circle, dug up an attractive print of an early performance at the University of Vienna with forces of roughly this size (as usual with Savall, the booklet is half the fun here), but in general, Die Schöpfung was performed by a much larger group, often numbering in the hundreds. The recording was made in May of 2021, during the coronavirus pandemic, and that may have played a role. The sound engineering at Catalonia's Castle of Cardona makes the overall group sound much larger, although the soloists tend to get lost in the space. They, especially soprano Yeree Suh as Gabriel and Eve (Savall recycles his soprano and baritone for the last part, as Eve and Adam), are a strong group, and the direct and humanistic approach to the text that is Savall's hallmark is everywhere in evidence; the choir, it almost goes without saying, is a magnificently supple group in Savall's hands. Made as part of the celebrations of the seemingly indestructible Savall's 80th birthday, this is a recording that will certainly appeal to his numerous fans.