Glaring musicological errors proliferate in Ricercar’s booklet note and blurb. The truth is that nobody knows when or why Handel composed the Latin motet Silete venti on a paper-type that he used in London between the mid-1720s and the early 1730s. The Millenium Orchestra’s increasingly vigorous storm bustles attractively in the Symphonia, and Julie Roset’s interruption commanding the winds to abate has a refined balance of authority and beauty. Shai Kribus’s poetic oboe and the strings’ perfectly weighted suspensions combine immaculately with Roset’s imploring petition (‘Dulcis amor Jesu’), an agitated central tempest is flanked by elegantly tripping evocation of garlands (‘Date serena’), and the virtuoso ‘Alleluia’ finale is relaxedly mirthful.

The authenticity of the misattributed Gloria in excelsis Deo is often greatly exaggerated since its ‘rediscovery’ in 2001, and yet this is at least its 12th recording already. Roset sings with crystalline lucidity and heartfelt sincerity; the first movement’s stratospheric cadenza is a touch overblown but the technical élan and exuberance of the ‘Quoniam’ finale have irresistible conviviality. A blatantly inauthentic concerto that mishmashes sinfonias from the Cannons anthem The Lord is my light and Acis and Galatea functions here as an incongruously lively overture to Handel’s poignant Salve regina. The Marian hymn was composed in June 1707 and most likely envisaged for a Trinity Sunday service at a little church near the patron Marquis Ruspoli’s countryside estate. Eight violins could be six more than Handel expected, and he would not have used harp continuo (let alone so liberally), but the Millenium Orchestra’s phrasing smoulders emotively. Roset’s perfectly judged messa di voce, shapely appoggiaturas and flawless enunciation of words contribute tellingly to this gorgeously textured and compelling performance – the organ obbligato in ‘Eia ergo advocata nostra’ is played vivaciously by Adria Gracia Galvez.

The programme is filled out with an aria apiece from Handel’s first Roman oratorio Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (1707) and his first English oratorio Esther (1720). The florid harp solos in ‘Praise the Lord with cheerful voice’ are played charmingly by Marie Bournisien (Leonardo García Alarcón’s sudden slower tempo for the B section is not persuasive). ‘Tu del ciel ministro electo’ partners Roset’s clean-voiced sublimity with Yves Ytier’s sensitive concertante violin; its renunciation of worldliness is achingly beautiful. Although a few artistic choices are debatable, the music-making is never anything less than eloquent.