Whether JC Bach’s cosmopolitan 18th­century musical language (heard to greatest effect while he was resident in socialite London between 1762­82) deserves its reputation as suave ephemera can be re­evaluated with Anthony Halstead’s sympathetic and exhaustive survey of his orchestral oeuvre. Facility is not the issue‚ as those who have sampled the symphonies concertantes and concertos in the same series will attest. The flavour that emerges in this invigoratingly performed set of Six Symphonies‚ Op 18‚ is of a composer who flaunts his talent nonchalantly within a galant aesthetic‚ a polished gestural landscape from which he ultimately cannot escape. Even so‚ there are surprises and delights in equal measure from a composer whose justifiable fame (Mozart knew his worth)‚ high fees and cultural assimilation are widely acknowledged in contemporary reports throughout Europe. Op 18 contains some of Johann Christian’s most arresting orchestral music‚ notably the three works for double orchestra‚ published in 1781 by William Forster just before Bach’s death. They confidently promote an interchanging identity between two string groups and divided winds‚ encapsulating both startling contrast as well as lyrical‚ opera­inspired themes. Such fresh immediacy is pounced on by the Hanover Band and irradiated by Halstead’s musicianly grasp of episodic character‚ heard in the first­rate Symphony in B flat (originally composed for Lucio Silla in Mannheim in 1775) and the winsome andantes which reveal Bach’s most individual expression. Occasionally‚ an idea is tantalising in its reticence to develop‚ such as in the quizzical E major work. There’s the rub with this Bach‚ and yet so congenial is this efficacious ‘theatre’ music that I was thoroughly won over. The playing is just occasionally rough­edged – a trifling complaint alongside such spirited and spontaneous advocacy. Well worth investigating.