Star rating *** To encounter one of Haydn's six great masses in its intended place - as part of a church service - is quite a rarity, at least in Scotland. But that was how we heard the Mass in Time of War, complete with orchestra, during Anglican high mass at St Michael and All Saints, Tollcross, on the first musical Sunday of this year's Edinburgh Festival.

Performed religiously, as a mass within a mass, rather than as part of a concert, the music undoubtedly gained fresh atmosphere. As Willy Hess has written of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, although inserting liturgical units into a unified organic work of art risks impairing the overall artistic impression, it was a risk worth taking on this occasion.

The small orchestra and the church's resident choir seemed neither daunted by, nor intent on triumphing over, their surroundings. And though Haydn, at the end, could not be said to have stolen the show, his masterpiece was undiminished by religious ritual. Underpinned by agitated kettledrums in the Agnus Dei, the music sang out effectively, its moments of Viennese sweetness warmly caught.

Nor was this all. The strains of Mozart's lovely Laudate Dominum, voiced confidently by young Emma Morwood during Communion, likewise helped to make this no ordinary Sunday service.