Telemann is never more irresistible than when he is in light-hearted pictorial mode, and both these new releases feature one of the most entertainingly evocative of all his overture- suites for strings, the Burlesque de Quixote. Taking episodes from the Cervantes novel as its inspiration, it provides us with a memorable sequence of cameos, from the deluded Don tilting at windmills and sighing with love, to Sancho Panza tossed high in a blanket, to portrayals of the pair’s respective steeds. The suite ends with our hero dreaming on in deranged fashion, apparently of a life in the saddle. Telemann achieves all this with such humour and descriptive precision that, when you hear it, you will surely laugh in delighted recognition. What a good film composer he would have been!

Both performances strike an appropriate tongue-in-cheek attitude. Recorded seven years ago, the ‘non-period’ Northern Chamber Orchestra show good style and a pleasingly light and clear texture, unclouded by excessive vibrato or over-egged string tone. Only at the bass end does the sound occasionally become a little thick, but this is really quibbling when what we actually have is a good demonstration of how to perform Baroque music on modern strings. It still makes quite a contrast with Collegium Musicum 90, however, whose period instruments, recorded more intimately, sound slighter and sparkier. Having already recorded so much of Telemann’s music, they sound more at home and have that extra ounce of freedom to enjoy themselves, fractionally delaying Sancho Panza’s landings, for instance, or undermining poor old Rosinante’s cantering with cheeky pizzicati.

The differences between the two ensembles are more obvious when wind instruments appear in some of the other works. Whereas CM90’s oboes and bassoons often seem to lead the way (not always in complete accord with the strings, it should be said), the NCO’s are more embedded in the overall texture, as is often the case when modern instruments play Baroque music. Whether or not you like it is a matter of taste, of course, but to my ears it has a devitalising effect.

As it happens, I found the couplings of the Chandos disc more interesting, anyway. For all that the NCO offer another attractive string suite, La Lyra, containing a typically realistic and beguiling hurdy-gurdy impersonation, the D major Overture is not especially memorable, and CM90 have found more colourful stuff in the strikingly French-accented G major Overture and a thoroughly charming Concerto for two violins, bassoon and strings. A pair of bassoons also makes a delightful appearance in the second Minuet of the Overture in B minor. The recording is dedicated to Micaela Comberti, whose last recording with CM90 this was before her death from cancer earlier this year. One of Britain’s pioneer Baroque violinists, she was a relatively unsung figure, though a musician of unfailing sensitivity and firm good sense. Both will be missed.