If there are moments among Muffat’s Componimenti musicali when the music sounds unexpectedly familiar, it may be because Handel took the title at face value and plundered it for thematic material for his Op 6 Concertos and Ode for St Cecilia’s Day among other works. In fact, though, this is of only passing interest; Gottlieb Muffat, organist at the Imperial Court at Vienna from 1717 to 1770, and son of the more famous Georg, emerges from this recording as a keyboard composer of range and substance, worthy of investigation by a harpsichordist who hasalready brought us rewarding discs of such neglected masters as Fischer and Böhm. The Componimenti, published some time in the late 1730s, are seven suites, none with fewer than eight movements except the last, which is an eight-minute Ciaccona. Muffat’s own reasoning for the title may well be to reflect the variety of music the set presents, “a whole universe” says Mitzi Meyerson, ranging from French overtures to Italian toccatas, and from lusty hornpipes to well-behaved allemandes and courantes. The overall impression is of a Handelian robustness, though Muffat has a manner of his own, more buoyant, more varied, and with an impish sense of humour. At least, that is how it sounds at the hands of Meyerson, whose musicianship has long been distinguished by bubbling but controlled energy and irreverent playfulness – she loves to toy with the endings of pieces, and you can almost hear her giving a cheeky salute in the Rigaudon of the First Suite. Her playing has a muscular resonance and force which sometimes edges out any tenderness, but the rollicking momentum she can generate in the fast-running gigues or the Ciaccona is irresistible. A discfull of life and fun.