Handel had no hesitation in adapting whole roles to suit new singers and for his Handel Album French star counter tenor Philippe Jaroussky does the same, making some of his material “more bespoke than off the peg”. For the 19 tracks, he has chosen some of the lesser-known operas among the 35 Handel composed for London between 1711 and 1741. Jaroussky has performed many of the arias over the years but Erato gave him the opportunity to weave them into a well thought out program with his top-notch band Artaserse.

Well known or not, these works are vintage Handel in all his guises – heroic, lyrical, dramatic – and there is plenty of buried treasure (the lilting flute...