The appointment of Peter Whelan as music director in 2018 has propelled the Irish Baroque Orchestra into an exhilarating new era. Galvanised by Whelan’s energy and fresh sense of direction, the group has doubled down on its national heritage with a series of intriguing and minutely researched recordings – all delving into Ireland’s musical history, much of it making it on to disc for the first time.

Following on from ‘Welcome Home, Mr Dubourg’ (7/19) and ‘The Trials of Tenducci’ (6/21) now comes ‘The Hibernian Muse’, a musical snapshot of Dublin at play at the turn of the 18th century that sees the orchestra team up with vocal ensemble Sestina. While the average man in the street would apparently have been content to mark both the centenary of Trinity College in 1694 and the birthday of Queen Anne in 1711 with ‘fireworks, bonfires, illuminations and ringing bells’, the higher orders enjoyed altogether more sophisticated celebrations – each with musical performances at their centre.

Trinity’s celebratory soundtrack comes courtesy of Purcell. The ode Great parent, hail! struggles to get out from under the earnest weight of its Nahum Tate text, no match for the pair’s later collaboration Come, ye sons of art, but there are plenty of attractive moments here. Soprano solo (a rarity in the odes) ‘The royal patron sung: repair’, accompanied by two coaxing recorders, is a gently bucolic fantasy in Maria Keohane’s delivery, and there’s some elegant sparring and echoing from rival tenors Anthony Gregory and Christopher Bowen in ‘After war’s alarms repeated’.

But the real novelty is the later work: Johann Sigismund Cousser’s The Universal Applause of Mount Parnassus (1711). Cousser – a Hungarian-born musician who moved to Dublin in 1707 – quickly became assimilated into the city’s musical scene, ultimately appointed both ‘Chapel-Master’ of Trinity and ‘Master of Musick, attending His Majesty’s State in Ireland’. This serenata was one of many works produced by Cousser in his official capacity – a stylised and (again) rather weightily allegorical drama, featuring endless roles for upper voices (Muses) and a cameo from a tenor Apollo (Gregory – by turns heroic and lyrical in ‘Tuneful virgins’ with its gloriously busy bassoon line). Keohane, soprano Aisling Kenny, mezzo Sinéad O’Kelly and alto Sarah Thursfield between them divide up the many characters.