Analekta puts the Italian aria texts (not including translations) online instead of in the booklet but does print long, irrelevant and soon to be out-of-date artist biographies. Moreover, the inadequate booklet-note is full of biographical and historical errors and misunderstandings. It would have been more useful to explain the dramatic contexts of arias, such as the previously unrecorded ‘Vaghi amori’ from Porpora’s serenata La festa d’Imeneo (it is sung by Hymen in praise of Prince Frederick of Wales and his bride Princess Augusta). Perhaps more effort could have gone into researching a more explorative programme than these five very obvious Handel arias and three selections by Porpora (one of them the oft-recorded ‘Alto Giove’ from Polifemo).

However, it turns out that Luc Beauséjour’s unmannered and judicious direction and his excellent small band Clavecin en Concert provide astutely characterised platforms for Julie Boulianne’s elegantly sincere singing. Her embellishments and immaculately precise slow cadenza in Aci’s ‘Alto Giove’ serve its poignancy, and she combines with the orchestra to achieve the perfect kind of delicate nocturnal sorrow with the gorgeous vocal melody, muted violins, pizzicato bass and lyrical bassoon in Ariodante’s ‘Scherza infida’. Ruggiero’s valorous ‘Stà nell’Ircana’ is handled with rhythmic surety and personality (the horns are obviously having a good time). The scampering violins and Boulianne’s vocal leaps are tastefully exuberant in Ariodante’s ‘Dopo notte’. Beauséjour’s engaging direction of these popular Handel arias makes for an illuminating comparison with Harry Bicket’s milder accompaniments on Alice Coote’s Hyperion recital (see above). Despite unfavourable surface impressions, I’m glad to have heard these sensitive and refreshing performances.