This peculiar collection played by Mara Galassi, with occasional support from Giovanni Togni, is subtitled “Harp Music by GF Haendel”, although it ought to be pointed out that none of the music is performed in a form that the composer envisaged. The booklet-note takes conjecture about the composer having met various harpists and presents the supposed connections too boldly as facts; too much is made of the inclusion of the word “harp” in a few oratorio librettos, and “Tune your harps” in Esther does not feature a harp obbligato (irrespective of how much harpists wish it to be otherwise). However, it is difficult to dislike anything produced by the fabulous Spanish label Glossa, and this unusual venture is no exception to the rule.

The title of Galassi’s exploration is the Microcosm Concerto, after a pastiche by Edward Jones (harpist to the Prince of Wales from 1788) for the benefit of budding students of his instrument. Like a couple of arrangements of popular Handel tunes by Nicolas Charles Bochsa, they tell us little about the composer directly but a great deal about the sonorities and characteristics of different historical harps. Galassi plays two kinds, differing in accordance to the period of the music: Handel’s Suite in D minor (HWV448, probably written in Hamburg shortly before the composer departed for his Italian adventure), an arrangement of the evergreen harp concerto, and William Babell’s ornamented version of “Lascia ch’io pianga” are all played on a Welsh triple harp made after a 1736 model in the Victoria and Albert Museum; variations and arrangements dating from the early 19th century are played on an original Érard instrument that has been lovingly restored to its 1816 condition (in an arrangement of “For unto us a child is born”, it is accompanied by a fortepiano dating from about 1798 that sounds amazingly close to honky-tonk). Galassi’s playing is fluent and silvery, and listeners will find it easy to become beguiled.