The Venetian theorbist Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger (1580-1651) worked in Rome from 1605, composing and performing for popes, cardinals and princes. Under the patronage of the powerful Barberini family (including Pope Urban VIII), Kapsberger became the renowned musical counterpart of the flourishing new Baroque architecture and art in the eternal city. I pastori di Bettelemme nella nascità di Nostro Signore Giesù Christo (published 1630), described as a sacred dialogue madrigal, is reminiscent of the fledgling genre of oratorio pioneered in nearby chapels of the city’s confraternities. Its libretto by Giulio Rospigliosi (close friend of the Pope and eventually his successor) combines the pastoral-tinged events of Christmas with Roman Catholic doctrine and a glorification of his Barberini patron.

The ensemble Echo du Danube interpolate the pastoral with several other short works by Kapsberger and Giovanni Lorenzo Baldano. This works perfectly well in performance but Accent’s confusing booklet-note does not print the sung texts in sequence and places the interpolations afterwards; nor does it explain which singer is performing each role. Continuo players account for half of the 10‑strong band, which raises some interesting issues that are written about openly and intelligently by the band’s chitarrone player Michael Dücker. As one might expect, Echo du Danube’s playing is intricate, busy and colourful, although maybe less fussy realisations would have served equally well. There is also beguiling use of a sordellina, a traditional Italian bagpipe with two melody pipes that Kapsberger prescribes for a Romanesque evocation of shepherds abiding in the field keeping watch over their flocks by night. Chiyuki Okamura is suitably angelic in her delivery of good news and the other five voices combine together beautifully as the shepherds soberly contemplate their need for a Redeemer to forgive them for their sins (the madrigalian passage “Habbi di noi pietà”).