You can argue endlessly about whether Verdi's Requiem is a true rite or a repackaged opera, but neither argument would embrace the real impact of this utterly humane and completely involving spiritual journey. For the performers, the only question is how best to accommodate Verdi's unflinchingly direct emotional expression.

For all that Jirí Belohlávek and the BBC Symphony Orchestra produced a well-drilled and stylishly played performance, this Requiem never had that visceral charge. It was too composed, almost too well-rounded, and, particularly when the supersize ranks of the BBC Symphony Chorus and the Crouch End Festival Chorus were singing anything other than forte, it had a whiff of the stately.

The problem lay in the pacing: this is a piece that lurches from consolation to damnation in a heartbeat; Belohlávek seemed most interested in ironing out the cracks and finding a lyrical smoothness to the piece that blurred its edges and dampened down its passions. An oddly balanced quartet of soloists didn't help: at times it seemed as if Michelle DeYoung's soft-grained mezzo (a late stand-in) and Violeta Urmana's powerhouse soprano could have swapped over (Urmana, in fact, began her career as a mezzo and arguably should never have traded up). In the bass part, Ildebrando D'Arcangelo's cries of “Mors!” (“death”) didn't send shivers down my spine: his is more a cultivated, Mozartian baritone than the gravel-voiced prophet of doom that Verdi surely required.

But, at its best, Belohlávek's close focus and regard for textural transparency achieved some miraculously intimate moments. Soft flutes breathed their way through a rapt Lux aeterna; the great soprano and mezzo duet, the Recordare, was another gentle highlight . Best of all, though, was the young Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja's unforced and open-throated ardour, soaring through the Hostias with real grace and, yes, true devotion.

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