The Homilius revival marches on. Following a clutch of recordings from Carus, CPO gets in on the act with the Dresden composer’s oratorio Der Messias, which was first performed at the Frauenkirche on Good Friday 1776. Although the libretto bears no relation to Charles Jennens’s for Handel, the work’s composition coincided with the popularisation of Handel’s score in German-speaking lands, and the two are of nearly identical length.

Homilius was especially highly esteemed as a church composer, and it is easy to hear why. His feeling for melody is balanced (or perhaps even exceeded) by a flair for dramatic touches, for which the libretto furnishes ample opportunity. The choral interventions are especially remarkable, though there is plenty of fine music among the arias. In general, the latter do not include the elaborate obbligato instrumental parts familiar from more famous scores of the previous generation (or the sacred works of CPE or WF Bach, for that matter); that said, the meditation on ‘Es ist vollbracht’, entrusted to both sopranos, hints at a more modern approach to scoring, in which the entire orchestra supports the soloists. As in the more successful volumes from the Carus series, there is again the sense of a familiar idiom being handled in a subtly unfamiliar way.

The performance does the work full justice. It would be invidious to single out any particular soloist, for it is the collective endeavour, drawing attention only to the quality of the music, that is most striking. In this they are ably supported by the ensemble and choir. For a composer whose discography is still comparatively modest, Homilius has been remarkably well served.