Ludus Baroque is a group of singers and instrumentalists who have been meeting twice a year since 1997 to give concerts of Bach and Handel in Edinburgh. This is their first commercial recording, and it’s a great success. Alexander’s Feast is an ode to St Cecilia set by Handel in 1736 to words written by Dryden in 1697. It tells how Alexander the Great was entertained at Persepolis, after his victory over the Persians, by the court musician, Timotheus. In the second part, Alexander is roused to burn the palace down in revenge for the death of his soldiers. The tenuous connection with St Cecilia lies in Dryden’s contrasting the pagan Timotheus, and his “breathing Flute, and sounding Lyre”, with “divine Cecilia”, associated with the organ.

The ode is scored for strings, oboes, horns, trumpet and timpani (and recorders, of which more anon). Richard Neville-Towle gets beautifully crisp playing from his orchestra: the jolly numbers bounce along nicely but the solemn passages are given their due weight too. The middle section of “Revenge, Timotheus cries”, violas and bassoons in octaves, is properly eerie. The chorus sounds young, fresh and enthusiastic. Ed Lyon gets off to a bad start by mispronouncing “Thais” (as do Sophie Bevan and the chorus, the latter also getting “deity” wrong); but he redeems himself with his ringing tone and, in “Happy pair”, awe-inspiring breath control. Sophie Bevan and William Berger are equally splendid. This is a notable achievement. In the end, though, Ludus Baroque must yield to The Sixteen: their performance is also top-notch but Harry Christophers chooses the fuller, recorder-accompanied version of “Thus, long ago”, for which Handel’s first thoughts are a poor substitute, and includes the two concertos, for harp and organ respectively, which are an integral part of this wonderful piece.