This is a labour of love. Emma Curtis stumbled across Calliope (published in 1739 by John Simpson) while researching the career of the castrato Senesino. A few songs are undeniably mediocre, but there are plenty of fine songs by familiar names (Purcell, Arne, Lampe, Boyce) and pieces adapted from Handel’s operas. The mixture gives us a glimpse into early-18th-century London’s social, political and cultural concerns, as well as revealing the kinds of songs popular for domestic use.

It is possible to draw a few entertaining conclusions from this lovingly packaged programme: Sir John Vanbrugh was more gifted at architecture than at musical composition (if we take the attribution of “The Coquet” seriously), so-called Scottish songs were enormously popular, and, naturally, that Anonymous was a prolific contributor to the genre.

Across the recital Curtis employs an impressive array of expressive vocal colours. Perhaps an early-18th-century singer would have tackled these with a straighter tone than Curtis uses for most of the faster songs featured here but her deepest register is outstanding when used for natural sweet singing. The fact she occasionally sounds like a tenor comes in useful in Galliard’s hunting song “The Early Horn”, which was a favourite song of Handel’s regular English oratorio tenors John Beard and Thomas Lowe. Among the highlights are Carey’s satirical “The Lady’s Lamentation for the Loss of Senesino” and Burgess’s counterpart “England’s Lamentation for the loss of Farinelli”. There is also beautifully crafted melancholy evident in songs such as Henry Holcombe’s “The Forsaken Nymph”. These diverting and entertaining songs fully deserve their new lease of life.