During the reigns of Augustus II the Strong (d1733) and his heir Friedrich Augustus III (d1763), the Dresden Hofkapelle employed some of the finest performer-composers of the age, such as Heinichen, Zelenka, Quantz, Weiss and Pisendel; other eminent visitors included Lotti, Handel, Bach and Hasse. Rousseau praised that Dresden had ‘the best distributed…[and] most perfect’ orchestra in Europe, so modern-day musicians treading in their footsteps have got a lot to live up to. These rise to the challenge with aplomb.

Vivaldi never visited Dresden but his music was performed under the supervision of his former student Pisendel, who sometimes rearranged it to make broader use of oboes, bassoons and horns. Four of the five concertos recorded here are in F major, with the D major Concerto per la Solennità di S Lorenzo placed at the epicentre; but any potential complaint of tonal monotony is vanquished by Les Ambassadeurs’ fabulous playing. The exuberant horns of Anneke Scott and Joseph Walters thrill in quick outer movements such as the first movement of RV562; the final movement’s dazzling and stratospheric violin cadenza is played classily by Zefira Valova, who also plays slow music with immaculate shading and tenderness (the Siciliano of RV569). Although there is an irrefutable element of sameness in the horn-fuelled peaks of the fast music, the slow Grave of RV574 has unusual soft sustained horn notes that sound like solemn organ chords. This anthology is labelled ‘Vol 1’, so there’s more of this glorious stuff to come.