Now aged 29, Tabea Debus is an alumna of several young professional artist schemes, and on one of her three albums to date commissioned no fewer than 12 composers to write companion pieces to Telemann’s solo fantasies. There are two commissions on this latest release as well, though here they complement the overall theme and title of the ‘Ohrwurm’ (‘Earworm’) – that nagging fragment of melody that hangs around in your head for days. It is proof that ‘earworm’ is not just a title tacked on to a programme of early-music favourites: Gareth Moorcraft’s Diaries of the Early Worm worries obsessively at a clutch of troubadour tunes, while Freya Waley-Cohen’s Caffeine is a restless thread of melodic over-stimulation. Meanwhile, most of the earlier pieces included are here because they enjoyed such catchy familiarity in their own day as to seem almost general property. All this is very cogently argued in the booklet note.

Debus’s presentation of this material is also well thought-out. Her versions of the Ciaconna and La Monica stir up personalised cocktails of variations by different composers, her arrangements of Soler’s harpsichord Fandango and Purcell’s ‘Fairest Isle’ attach improvisatory introductions for her fellow musicians, and she makes a little D minor sonata out of three movements by Castrucci, the famous Adagio from Marcello’s Oboe Concerto and Marais’s Les folies d’Espagne.

Her technique is nimble and clear through the most difficult of variations, and her tone rich, controlled and above all singing. Her soprano recorder gives little jewels such as Carroubel’s Spagnoletta or The Earle of Essex Galliard a birdsong-like ring, while the alto brings a relaxed lyrical nobility to ‘Fairest Isle’, La suave melodia or Lamento di Tristano. She is, though, a little over-serious at times: the Soler struts but doesn’t smoulder, and the progress of longer variation sets can be hampered when she misses that last witty tug of timing or contrast that can reel in the listener. Perhaps that will come, but in the meantime this is an impressive piece of work.