In their continuing series of orchestral works by Johann Friedrich Fasch, Philadelphia-based baroque band Tempesta di Mare are doing the decent thing by focusing mainly on works that haven’t already been recorded by someone else. And after all, Fasch’s known output of nearly 100 ouverture-suites, over 60 concertos and 19 sinfonias leaves plenty to go round. None of it was published in his lifetime, but, despite being for most of his life court Kapellmeister in relatively provincial Zerbst, he knew a lot of the right people (Telemann was a schoolfriend, Graupner his teacher, and in later life he was in contact with Pisendel and CPE Bach), and the plentiful surviving manuscripts show that his music was widely performed at important centres such as Dresden, Darmstadt and Hamburg.

This is Tempesta’s fourth volume of Fasch, and, like its predecessors, offers tasters of each of the three forms mentioned above, all in premiere recordings. The quality of Fasch’s music is dependably high, with touches of originality and a light and cheerful flavour that makes it more like Telemann than Bach, though perhaps without the former’s irresistible wit and charm. The suites are naturally the most conventionally baroque works here, their substantial French ouvertures robustly coloured by a wind section that uses pairs of flutes and oboes together (rather than one or the other), their dances and airs sprightly and characterful. The Sinfonia is galant-leaning, with short phrases and decorative triplets in the melody lines, repeated-note bass lines and primarily homophonic textures, though the Alla breve third movement sets its buzzing tremolandos afloat on heaving contrapuntal waters. The flute-coloured Andante is the most touching music on the programme. The Violin Concerto, probably written for Pisendel, is less interesting, Fasch’s attempts to extend the components of ritornello form erring towards longwindedness, and that with fairly undistinguished material.

The performances are stylish and enthusiastic. They are for the most part well paced, though a couple of the movements called ‘Aria’ are rather sluggish (in one case quite heavy-handed), and generally speaking you will not quite find here the vibrant flexibility of line and phrasing that the best baroque orchestras achieve. It is a nice touch that they were recorded live in concert in the 18th-century Stadthalle Zerbst but there are moments of unsettled ensemble in the first track, and neither is the recorded balance quite as clean and present as a studio might have allowed – couldn’t the winds have been brought forwards a touch more? A rewarding and gratifying release if you are a Fasch fan, perhaps slightly less so for those with only passing interest.