This is a stunning collection of Handel opera numbers. For originality, risk-taking and erudition, it towers above its predecessors. It also benefits from its mix of soloists – having chosen the music for its expressive licence, David Bates brings together world-class vocal and instrumental virtuosos to perform it.This project is a heroic achievement for all involved.

all three soloists are excellent, with complete vocal control over Handel’s often tortuous lines, whether they be lyrical or filled with coloratura.

Virtually every number is a Handelian winner, the performances could hardly be bettered, and Pentatone’s presentation, including apt contemporary quotes and illuminating notes from Ruth Smith and Bates himself, is a model of its kind.

It's a joy to hear members of La Nuova Musica's crack team of players stepping into the spotlight with such flair and synergy with their respective singers in this programme of opera arias with obbligato instruments: I love the hint of good-natured one-upmanship between violinist Thomas Gould and Iestyn Davies in the avian cadenzas of Cesare's Se in fiorito ameno prato.

All [instrumentalists] deserve their star billing, pitted against three admired Handel singers. Davies’s boyish alto is better suited to Caesar’s musing about the beauty of nature than to Rinaldo’s martial bravura, Crowe is a rich-voiced Agrippina and Cleopatra, and Rice is heroic in arias written for the castrato, Carestini.