Once a star chorister in the Vienna Boys’ Choir, Max Emanuel Cencic is more counter-mezzo than countertenor, with a range (more than two octaves, from low G to high A), power and vibrancy reminiscent of Jochen Kowalski but few others of his ilk. Handel, inevitably, is central to his career. And this recital of arias composed for assorted castratos and one female singer – the soprano-turned-mezzo Margherita Durastanti – has been shrewdly planned to display both his own versatility and the composer’s dramatic genius over a wide spectrum of moods. Cencic’s almost reckless brilliance is immediately on show in the ferocious “Sorge nell’alma mia” from Imeneo, which provided Handel with the cue for “Why do the nations” in Messiah. Some may find Cencic’s chesty plunges, here and elsewhere, overdone. Top notes occasionally discolour in the intensity of the moment. But as a portrait of jealous frustration this is startlingly vivid, with hyperactive Barocchisti dancing as if on hot coals. Another bravura tour de force is Serse’s “Se bramate d’amar”, where Cencic graphically conveys both the snarling vindictiveness and the sudden infusions of pain. As elsewhere, he heightens the intensity in the da capo without resorting to over-the-top ornamentation.

A problem for many falsettists is that when they try to express passion they end up sounding distinctly petulant. Not so Cencic, with his notably rich, colourful middle and lower registers. Phrasing broadly, he catches all the amorous yearning of Andronico’s great soliloquy “Benché mi sprezzi” from Tamerlano, and the impassioned grief of “Pena tiranna” from Amadigi – one of several welcome rarities on this disc. He is no less moving in Radamisto’s famous lament “Ombra cara”, subtly, delicately inflected and suggesting new depths of sorrow in the da capo.

Once or twice – I’m thinking especially of the tender siciliano love song from Floridante – the harpsichord continuo can be over-busy for my taste. And while conductor Diego Fasolis’s penchant for zesty tempi usually pays off, he turns the elegantly tripping gavotte finale from the serenata Parnasso in festa into a breathless galop. But these are tiny provisos. This is a thrilling Handel recital, with Fasolis and his band complementing Cencic in sensitivity and virtuosity – not least in an aria from Agrippina where soloist and instruments vie in a coruscating concerto grosso for voice and orchestra.