This recording should send Baroque music lovers clamouring for more. Although a violinist, Johann Friedrich Fasch wrote ingeniously for wind instruments. Ensemble Marsyas, whose debut recording was of Zelenka trio sonatas (A/12), have got Fasch’s measure and devised a programme, recorded in August 2013 at Wigmore Hall, that artfully exploits the textural and expressive implications of his music.

Why mix recorder and bassoon concertos with quartets? The shifts between the two aren’t as stark as one might imagine because of Ensemble Marsyas’s relatively large contingent of continuo players, who subtly vary and enrich the quartet textures. The horn and recorder quartets are particularly orchestral, akin to the Bach Brandenburgs. If the recording quality – clear and warm – is excellent, the musicianship and rapport between winds, strings and continuo is extraordinary. The soloists Peter Whelan and Pamela Thorby deliver nimble and stylish performances in the concertos. Monica Huggett – usually the leader or soloist – makes cameo appearances in the concerto accompaniments and the horn and recorder quartets that are models of collaboration.

The real star of the show, however, is the bassoon. Fasch infused his bassoon parts with versatility – sometimes making it the first to state a theme, shifting it from melody to obbligato and even continuo roles within and between movements. The G minor Quartet illustrates this perfectly. Fasch’s love of sustained pedal tones (exquisitely shaped by Whelan and the oboists Josep Domenechlafont and Molly Marsh), arresting staccato repeated-note accompaniments (trs 14, 17 and 25), batteries (repeated intervals, best exemplified by tr 28), echoes (particularly in the horn quartet) and modal shifts from minor to major (trs 2 and 14) further characterise his music. Enormously enjoyable.