Who is this Englishman? Well, it’s Nicola Matteis – not the Italian violinist-composer we usually hear but rather his son Nicola, who was born in England and travelled to Vienna in 1700, there to become leader of Emperor Charles VI’s orchestra. Adrian Chandler has chosen him to spearhead this hunt for English influence on European orchestral music in the first part of the 18th century.

It may sound a tough task, but Chandler knows a lot of Baroque corners and has an ear for the merest hint of Englishness, plus an eagle eye for mineable historical connections. Matteis himself is represented by a ‘violin concerto’, although there are really only solos in the first movement, and even they don’t start until halfway through. In the remaining movements, however, a Purcellian strain lurks under the surface – the hornpipe-like Air could fit nicely into Dido and Aeneas – and the same ineffable air is breathed in the quirky ballet movements Matteis wrote for a Caldara opera. I wonder if the Viennese were aware of it.

Some of the composers here could have met Matteis, while others knew people who did. Hence the typically well-made suite by Telemann (he knew Mattheson, who had mentioned Matteis in a treatise); its overture really does have a Purcellian sound to it, one that we might never have noticed had Chandler not drawn our attention to it. Then there is Vivaldi, who could have met Matteis in Trieste when Charles VI was there in 1728, and in whose lustrous Il favorito he might have been the soloist. The connections get rather stretched when we come to Brescianello: he ‘might have come across’ Matteis apparently, but Chandler has been keenly championing his music in recent years. The C major Suite is pleasant enough without reaching Telemann’s level but the one-off Chaconne in A is quite a discovery: well-paced, rich with contrast and performed here with great vigour.

Indeed, the strings of La Serenissima – notably young in personnel here – show evident enthusiasm for Chandler’s direction throughout, and respond with precision and clarity. Purcell’s Chacony, with a distinctive catchy clipped note at the head of every bar, has real zip to it. Listening to this Englishman and his ensemble is always refreshing.