In the pantheon of Bachs, Johann Ludwig takes a modest position as a local Thuringian cousin of JSB’s, some of whose works are preserved today only because Bach performed them liturgically at St Thomas’s. Carus has explored some of these cantatas as part of the enterprising series of “off the beaten track” Bach and now Florian Heyerick and his Belgian forces of mixed choir and viols (usually doubled) present 10 motets with a genial thoughtfulness which suits this finely crafted but unadventurous idiom.

As each of these pieces demonstrates, JLB sets words with a greater delight in melodic grace and syllabic clarity than rhetorical realisation – which is why the abstract music of the strophic Das Blut Jesu Christi tells us little about the “agony, blood-drenched sweat” of his execution. Instead, he circumnavigates the contemplative with modest ease and unhurried charm (as in Die richtig für sich gewandelt haben), often instilling a comforting succour to the text and the listener.

Although reasonably large-scale works, none of the sections makes great demands on the performers. There is a notable exception in Gott sei uns gnädig, where a solo bass rattles through virtuoso passagi with an energy quite at odds with Johann Ludwig’s contained polychoral dialogues. Ex Tempore are not perhaps the most incisive and charismatic of groups, especially in the more Schütz-inspired pieces, but they capture the spirit of JLB’s agreeable if ultimately generic and limited language. A disc more for the inquisitive than for seekers of genetic Bachian inspiration.