CHRIS WAS the only rich guy I knew in college Chris ...

But one time in his Tarrytown home, he slipped on a 10-inch album, a mass played on hunting horns. It was magnificent, more elemental than ecclesiastical. I hadn't heard it again until a few weeks back, when I had more luck than I would have hoped for. I found three versions of St. Hubert's Mass (Hubertusmesse in the German recordings). I picked up one on the MDG label, recorded in 1993, based on mostly anonymous pieces expanded on by Michael Höltzel, who heads the Detmolder Hornisten. It's purely instrumental and, except for the "Kyrie," doesn't follow the structure of a sung mass.

The "largecoiled and valveless parforce horns" can whack you flat with their sound, but they can't produce a true F or F-sharp, leaving me occasionally wiggling my little finger in my ear and thinking, "I wish these guys could get in tune." But the sound is full, rich, invigorating, the most direct tie you're likely to hear between a Christian service and the ancient gods of the forest.

The mass fills less than half of the disc, which also includes French, Bohemian and Austrian hunting music, even a piece by Rossini. The short 19th-century Austrian court blasts by Josef Shantl, which range from canter to gallop, will get you up and saluting every flag in sight, including Pooh's.

But the strangest, most lasting and most magical blending of the Christian and the "pagan" is the Missa Luba, organized by a Belgian missionary to the Congo, Guido Haazen, sometime in the '50s. It's one of those rare human documents that can actually give you hope. And it's not at all what you might expect?there's no "whiteness" to it, and none of the emotional dumbing down of academic black choruses in the U.S. In joyous power, it's probably closest to today's gospel, but in sound, nothing like it.

A treatment of the mass liturgy?in Latin?from "Kyrie" to "Agnus Dei," it's based entirely on Congolese rhythms, with a tight-wound energy and immediacy that take religion beyond any particular creed or belief system.

In the slow, undulating "Kyrie," a sharp hand-drum line runs under antiphonal male-female choruses. The "Gloria" unfolds like a campfire story, led by a male soloist, with the women's chorus adding responses and hums of appreciation. The longest selection, the "Credo," starts out somber, then pulls out the stops with the drums, the male soloist and the high soprano chorus chasing one another down the corridors of belief.

The "Sanctus" moves with a processional solemnity before the "hosannas" of the "Benedictus" lift the whole thing into the air. Then the "Agnus Dei" sums up and incorporates everything that's come before. Remarkably, the entire recorded mass runs under 13 minutes, a concise, visceral call to the spiritual. It lies at the opposite end of the spectrum from Bach's B-minor.

If you know tribal sounds from West Africa, you'll recognize many of them here. And if you don't, the Missa Luba includes original tribal songs and dances?as vital and beautiful as the mass?to show where it all comes from. This is not only a beautiful album but one of the all-time essential recordings.

I gave up on religion a long way back, since it seems to lead more often to the current absurdities in the Mideast and India than to anything that can propel or compel a decent life. The Missa Luba though? It makes me wonder.

What's Out There: Amazon.com lists the MDG version of the Hubertusmesse on CD. For the real Missa Luba, you have to reach back to vinyl (Philips 6527 137 or Philips PCC 606); avoid the newer, bland CD versions.