A nice idea, this. By choosing music by expatriate composers working in England during the Baroque and early Classical periods, La Ricordanza can give us works ranging from Purcell’s time (Nicola Matteis and Gottfried Finger), through the Handelian period and right up to Abel and JC Bach, making resourceful and varied use of a line-up of flute, recorder, oboe, strings and harpsichord.

Only on closer inspection does the realisation begin to look a little flaky: some of the music is Scottish for one thing; but, more disappointingly, of the two Handel works the ‘Oboe Concerto’ was composed long before he saw Albion’s shores (and was not, as the booklet states, later published in London), while the Trio Sonata is considered by most scholars to be spurious. Finally, there does not seem to be much evidence that English composers felt the German-Italian influx to be a ‘foreign insult’ at all; the phrase actually comes from a Richard Steele play and refers only to the world of opera singers.

Fortunately, these quibbles are just that compared to the purely musical success of this disc, which is considerable. Everything here is attractive, some of it is unusual, and some rather good. Barsanti’s Old Scots Tunes are coolly evocative, Matteis’s Ground is a spritely foot-tapper, and Finger’s Recorder Sonata has a severe beauty. And although we may not necessarily be hearing Handel at his best, Abel’s Flute Concerto is a rather impressive CPE Bach-like piece, while JC Bach’s Quintet for flute, oboe, violin, viola, cello and continuo shows the London Bach at his most endearing and resourceful in a piece of perfectly honed conversational chamber music.

La Ricordanza play with admirable style and spirit throughout, in an acoustic that is comfortingly, if at times cloudingly, resonant. A flavour of 18th-century England certainly then, and an agreeable one too.