Frescobaldi was never officially maestro di cappella of any institution, although the renowned keyboard composer was employed as organist in some of Rome’s most important churches. A clutch of small-scale motets are preserved but the linchpin of this non-specific liturgical reconstruction is an eight-part Mass setting based loosely on the secular song ‘Madre, monaca non mi vo’far’, its manuscript in the archive of St John Lateran attributed somewhat insecurely to Frescobaldi. Proceedings are fleshed out as necessary with Gregorian chants, three of Frescobaldi’s certifiable short motets and a few keyboard pieces played excellently by Attilio Cremonesi on an organ built in 1545.

Early music twitchers may spot that the now-defunct Il Teatro Armonico included luminaries such as cornettist Jean Tubéry and singers Rossana Bertini, Marco Beasley and Furio Zanasi (who leads the plainchant); the performers are organised into two choirs, each consisting of revolving teams of four singers and four instruments, often with an instrument playing certain passages within the texture instead of a voice singing the line. The sound is often a bit rough around the edges but the fluent and skilful performance of the three-part motet Ego sum panis vivus (for two sopranos, tenor and basso continuo) contradicts criticism by the 17th-century writer Antimo Liberati that Frescobaldi was ‘unhappy and inept as a composer of vocal music’.