American mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux is a do-or-die, full-fat artist whose passion for Italian baroque is the white-hot zeal of an evangelist. Hommage à Vivaldi explores an intriguing mixture of solo cantatas and larger-scale choral works. The concept may be tenuous – Genaux, who recorded this disc in Vienna, imagines a scenario where Vivaldi became Kapellmeister of the city’s Cathedral – but the music gathered under this flimsy counter-factual umbrella is excellent.

Most interesting are two less familiar works, solo cantatas In Turbato Mare Irato and Sum in Medio Tempestatum. Both dramatise the Christian believer vividly, tossed on a sea of semiquaver doubt. Genaux’s coloratura has lost none of its clarity, cutting crisply through Dubrovsky’s characterful...