I doubt if anyone has produced a disc of 18th-century domestic music from Birmingham before, but here now is one from an ensemble whose name not only references a music club established in the city in 1762 but also describes the discoveries they have made perfectly. This is the kind of anthology that Hyperion’s ‘English Orpheus’ series used to do so well, and anyone familiar with the bonny hotpots of Corelli, Handel, JC Bach and folk melody regularly unearthed there will know what kind of sound to expect. The composers here are almost as obscure as can be – I can find only Richard Mudge mentioned in Gramophone’s archives, and then not often – but their music is certainly not without skill, grace, wit or charm.

All were either organists or vicars, but here we have mainly secular vocal music ranging from classical cameos (Joseph Harris’s Invocation or John Pixell’s playful Ode to Anacreon) to Pixell’s poetic Invitation to the Red-Breast, and from Harris’s mildly erotic Gentle air, thou breath of lovers to some movingly sustained advice to a pretty maid that only wisdom endures by Jeremiah Clark (‘Jeremiah Clark of Worcester’ that is, not ‘Jeremiah Clarke of the Trumpet Voluntary’). Yet there are also solemn sacred songs by Rev Pixell and solo sonatas by Barnabas Gunn, plus Gunn’s stung but good-humoured retort to an attack on his music by the Professor of Music at Oxford. The sonatas, at least, suggest he little deserved the censure.

The performances are respectful and understanding, tidy if not technically powerful, and while soprano Louise Wayman’s light, sunny voice does not have the same level of bright openness and assurance as an Emma Kirkby, there is nevertheless a similar quality in it that suits this winsome repertoire well. The decision to record it in a church acoustic seems questionable but in general this is a pleasant and well-presented introduction to some likable new names.