Bach’s peerless command of pan-European musical styles and dialects is all the more remarkable for having been acquired entirely on German soil. These Italian concertos were, in all likelihood, brought back from Amsterdam by Bach’s employer in Weimar and then transcribed in about 1714. The purpose? Probably a cheap way for Prince Ernst to hear the pieces he’d purchased or else Bach’s autodidactic way of mastering Venetian concerto form.

Indeed, these works reveal more of the Thuringian composer’s exploratory instincts than superlative creativity but Vital Julian Frey’s accomplished and sound playing deftly juxtaposes echt Vivaldian texture and Bachian counterpointing. His copy of an indigenous and contemporaneous Mietke instrument is an exceptional vehicle for a meticulously prepared and controlled demonstration, from the measured theatricality of Torelli’s D minor Concerto to the mesmerising play on dissonance and lyricism at the heart of Vivaldi’s Op 7 No 8.

But “demonstration” is too often the sensation, as the music is effectively rather than atmospherically conveyed. A cautious, if immediate, approach rarely yields to fantasy, allure or the breeziness – which Bach would, in his Brandenburgs et al, have both admired and wanted to transform – with the exception of some dazzling playing in the prestissimo of Marcello’s C minor Concerto. Small slips aside (including in the booklet), this is still a recital of some calibre.