It wouldn’t do to allow one’s imagination to stray too far over the cover artwork to this 25th-anniversary studio recording from the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, their black-tied artistic director Paul Dyer confidently meeting the camera’s gaze, posed in a Bond-esque power stance, unravelled bow tie rakishly framing undone top shirt buttons as he cradles a red explosion of a bouquet. So instead on to the contents, which are a cheerful party mix of Baroque allsorts, rounded off by the premiere recording of their anniversary concert commission for soprano and Baroque ensemble, Prelude and Cube, by the Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin. The whole is supported by equally chirpy entry-level booklet-notes (think ‘What to listen for’, etc).

Upbeat tone and brevity are the unifying factors of the Baroque quotient (all complete works), with not one hitting the 11 minute mark. Jamie Hey is the soloist for Vivaldi’s pint-sized Cello Concerto in A minor, RV421, and while there are cleaner, lighter-weighted and more multi hued Vivaldi RV421s out there, the orchestra’s polished energy and evident joie de vivre make for a thoroughly gratifying listen, as they do with Telemann’s Concerto in E minor for flute, violin and strings, TWV52:e3, with flautist Melissa Farrow and Baroque violinist Shaun Lee-Chen. Likewise, Handel’s Zadok the Priest’s crisp perkiness is infectious. Sadly though, the enjoyment stopped with Prelude and Cube. In fact, it was sheer professional conscientiousness that kept me grimly hanging in for repeated replays of its 13 minute (13!) amalgam of Baroque, jazz and Philip Glass pastiches.