Jan Dismas Zelenka is an extraordinarily intriguing figure: some five years senior to Bach, and a Dresden court and chapel composer for most of his career, he composed music that, although cast in the standard idiom of the time and place, has a curious wilfulness – the lines take odd twists, the modulations veer off in strange directions, the counterpoint moves at unpredictable angles, the phrase lengths refuse to follow the expected patterns. None of this makes it better music, or worse: just different. It certainly seems to reflect something of the man’s personality, to judge from the little we know about him. And it makes the music constantly fascinating to listen to.

Especially when performed as beautifully and with such evident care and affection as it is on Robert King’s new CD. The opening bar of the Litany proclaims Zelenka’s individuality: a big C major chord – and then a powerful G sharp rings out in the middle of it; no one else did that sort of thing. There are several appealing and individual movements here, for example the solemn and expressive choral setting of ‘Praecelsum et admirabile’, with its sense of wonderment, or the rapt little ‘Spiritualis dulcedo’ for three high solo voices and its choral sequel ‘Propitius esto’.

The Regina coeli, with its declaimed plainsong followed by music for three high voices and oboe ensemble, is a very attractive piece, as too is the Salve Regina, again with a sensuous interplay of voices and instruments. But the most deeply felt music here is perhaps in the Officium Defunctorum, on the death of Elector Friedrich August: the three lessons are all differently scored, one with soprano and a cool, soft chalumeau, the next for tenor with oboes, the last for bass with the traditional elegiac recorders; Carolyn Sampson, full and warm in tone, beautifully catches the quiet fervour of the first, James Gilchrist intertwines elegantly with the oboes in the second, and Peter Harvey delivers the third with impeccable smoothness of style and tone. In the final Invitatorium from this work Robin Blaze provides some spectacularly impassioned singing, too, against a colourful orchestral texture with flutes and oboes. With King’s polished choir and orchestra, his usual springy rhythms and his sensitivity equally to shades of texture and shades of musical meaning, Zelenka’s curious music could scarcely have better advocacy.