Despite the Spanish form of his name, Ignacio de Jerusalem (1707 69) was Italian, born Ignazio Gerusalemme in Lecce. Like his older contemporary, Domenico Scarlatti, Jerusalem found greater fame in Spain (in Cadiz), though unlike Scarlatti, in 1742 (10 years after arriving in Spain), Jerusalem was enticed to Mexico City, where he remained for the rest of his life, composing profusely and becoming Chapel Master of the Cathedral in 1750.

The five works here date mostly from the final decade of Jerusalem’s life. The Missa de los Niños (not the same work as the G major Mass recorded 25 years ago by Schola Cantorum Mexico on Urtext Digital Classics) has pride of place but strikes me as rather uneven. After a moving yet preludial Kyrie, the meat of the work lies in a rather sectional setting of the Gloria followed by a more unified Credo, yet the final pair of movements – Sanctus and Agnus Dei – are brief to the point of perfunctory. The longest track, the cantata Incipit lamentatio Jeremiae Prophetae is another matter, music of a consistently higher quality, very nicely sung here by Alexa Græ.

Jerusalem’s use of the Italian galant style made his music popular in Mexico (manuscripts spread from California to Guatemala) and the pair of charming duets and the Symphony ‘with hunting horns’ show this well. The Symphony – again, not the same work as the Symphony in G recorded by the same artists (Navona, 2013) – may seem a touch inconsequential and is at the overture end of the 18th-century form. The performances throughout by the Chicago Arts Orchestra and Chorale (the soloists all drawn from the latter’s ranks) under Javier José Mendoza are nicely if unspectacularly rendered, a few minor intonational slips aside. Navona’s sound is very acceptable.