There have been murmurs of discontent that too many Handel aria recitals are being churned out. I’m optimistic that the format has artistic life left in it, provided that suitable singers, reliable conductors and sincere record companies use a bit of imagination and ambition. One potentially worthwhile project is an exploration of Handel’s writing for the bass voice: very few such recital discs have been attempted, and most have resorted to transpositions of popular pieces written for higher voices; also, it is high time we exploded the myth that Handel’s writing for bass singers was routinely dull and merely doubled the basso continuo. The field is ripe to harvest.

So it’s a pity that Lorenzo Regazzo and Concerto Italiano fail to create an adequate Handelian bass experience. The inclusion of ordinary, decent arias seems to have been dictated by the popularity of their parent works (Tamerlano, Alcina and Serse), but there is much finer bass music in less familiar operas.

The technical mastery of the musicians is never in doubt during these neat performances. “Se il mio paterno amore” (Siroe) lacks sufficient menacing character, and in “Gelido in ogni vena” – in which Cosroe realises that he has wrongly condemned his son to death – Concerto Italiano’s clipped playing lacks expressive line, and Regazzo’s accomplished voice seems uninterested in reaching into the core of the intensely anguished drama. “Sorge infausta una procella” (Orlando) is better; the brisk accompaniment has a quizzical and philosophical tone, and Regazzo’s delivery of the text is forthright (even if it doesn’t come anywhere close to conveying the wisdom of the enlightened sorcerer Zoroastro). The scene from Agrippina in which Claudio unsuccessfully attempts to bed Poppea is unconvincing: “Pur ritorno a rimirarvi” feels as if Regazzo is singing only to the microphone, and not to Poppea (notwithstanding the presence of soprano Gemma Bertagnolli for a few lines of recitative); “Vieni, o cara” is perfunctory and lacks the requisite seductiveness. Regazzo’s singing is one-dimensional: Claudio, Cosroe, Elviro and Zoroastro are different and unique dramatic characters, but here their personalities sound suspiciously identical. I’m glad to have an accomplished recording of the infrequently heard cantata Dalla guerra amorosa. This isn’t an awful recital, but it should have been so much more.