In 1765, the Austrian Archduke Joseph married Maria Josepha of Bavaria. To celebrate, his sisters put on an entertainment: with brother Leopold as musical director, four of the archduchesses sang a new azione teatrale by Gluck. Il Parnaso confuso, to a text by the court librettist Metastasio, is a charming, slightly silly confection set on Mount Parnassus. Orfeo ed Euridice had been composed three years before, but Gluck was happy to return to a more traditional manner.

It isn’t one of his best pieces, but there is some fetching music in it, music that bears his personal imprint. What is perhaps surprising is that music as difficult as this, full of taxing vocal fioritura, lay within the capacity of the young sisters playing the Muses. Two of them have two arias, the others one each. Whoever sang Melpomene must have been very accomplished: her first aria requires a great deal of agility, as well as staying power, and her second, in a slow tempo, is a genuinely touching piece. Even if Julianne Baird’s voice lacks a little of its old fluency her sweet and musical tone and phrasing remain; she negotiates the roulades with skill and makes much of the expressive aria. She adds a good deal of elaboration in the da capo sections and carries it off with conviction.

Nothing else is quite on that level. The role of Apollo, written for a singer of extremely high tessitura, is bravely done by Danielle Munsell Howard, though the effect isn’t consistently beautiful. Erato, sung tastefully by a countertenor, has a lovely arioso with pizzicato within the orchestral texture representing the sound of the lyre; Euterpe has a very pleasant and graceful aria with prominent oboe, exquisitely played. Rudolph Palmer, who has done sterling work in the revival of little-known but worthwhile music, conducts ably, though it is beyond him, perhaps beyond anyone, to prevent Gluck’s static bass lines from plodding at times. But this is a charming little work, and I am glad to have had the chance of a glimpse into the privileged cultural world that gave rise to it.