With every disc they release there’s something new to like about Capella de la Torre – oboist Katharina Bäuml’s Austria-based early music ensemble. Their emphasis on wind instruments sets them apart from many string-dominated rivals, giving their recordings a wonderful textural richness and variety, recognised last year with an ECHO Klassik award for their ‘Water Music’. Their latest project, perhaps their most attractive yet, invites listeners to spend an evening in 17th-century Venice – singing, dancing and passing the time in the convivial company of works by Rossi, Zanetti, Barbetta and more.

The seductive whirr and crack of the tambourine sets the pace for a disc built around dances, from exotic morescas to sprightly bergamasques and stately ricercars. Even the instrumental arias and sinfonias are shot through with rhythmic interest, and there’s an exhilaration to such a relentless pulse, to so many circling ground basses.

The other animating force here is the narrative of a musical rivalry between strings and wind (Venice’s piffari – the town waits – were famous for their skill), with each force striving to outdo the other. A rhetorical Uccellini sonata (La Luciminia contenta) and Montalbano’s sinfonia Geloso put Anne Schumann’s expressive solo violin in the spotlight with their highly inflected arioso-like effects, while Spiardo’s Ballo de Cigni showcases Hildegard Wippermann and Bäuml’s shawms and Flako Munkwitz’s sackbut.

Flute and recorder, a resonant dulcian and plenty of percussion add their voices elsewhere to create a programme that wanders from tavern to court to street – even stopping off briefly at a church in Gastoldi’s serene Domine ad adiuvandum – with blissful ease. Each of the nine-strong ensemble is both consort musician and soloist, and the give and take of this beautifully constructed programme is perfectly calibrated. A quiet contender come Awards season, surely.