Handel’s name is on the cover, and so is a bold photograph of his statue’s silhouette by the Marktkirche in his native Halle, but CPO has ensured that two Lutheran cantatas attributed to him here are presented with the small-print disclaimer that ‘Handel’s authorship is not secured’. It seems to me that their authenticity is unlikely but it is entirely understandable that the enterprising Thuringian performers have devoted efforts to reviving what might possibly be among the very few scraps of Handel’s earliest attempts at composition. The booklet-note suggests that the lively Easter dialogue Triumph, ihr Christen seid erfreut might have been written by the 11-year-old Handel. However remote the possibility, at least it allows us to speculate about the kind of late-17th-century musical traditions he experienced in childhood before he got fed up with the parochialism of Halle and went to Hamburg, Italy and eventually London.

Cantus Thuringia’s five-part strings play eloquently, assured oboes and bassoon make occasional contributions and the ensemble of solo voices communicates the pious texts sincerely. Under the direction of organist Bernhard Klapprott, they also present two church cantatas composed by the Leipzig-born Friedrich Wilhlem Zachow (1663-1712), who was the young Handel’s first music teacher at the Marienkirche (from about 1694). One often reads Zachow’s name but never hears his music, so these attractive performances offer intriguing examples of capable Lutheran cantatas written shortly prior to the earliest extant cantatas of Bach, who was solicited to succeed Zachow at the Marienkirche but preferred to stay in Weimar. A rewarding curiosity.