Italian period band Concerto Italiano continue their stylish survey of Vivaldi’s small yet perfectly formed string concertos with this second volume in Naïve’s monumental Vivaldi Edition. But has their normally iconoclastic director erred on the side of caution? In the booklet notes Alessandrini makes useful observations about these tiny concertos sans soloists, each of which lasts no more than four minutes. There are lots of them, but nobody knows what they were used for – though they claim kinship with Vivaldi’s operatic overtures. They take an idea and develop it through “predictable harmonic sequences”. They employ dance forms such as the gigue, fugal textures and “a certain carefree joy in the motor rhythms of long semiquaver passages”. As all are in four parts, their “chamber music idiom also lends itself to one instrument per part”.

The music is wonderful, with Vivaldi showing his usual knack for getting the most out of a single idea, and Alessandrini’s sure direction moves it at a cracking pace with no loss of clarity. It’s only when you compare it with the far more colourful and exciting ones by Adrian Chandler and La Serenissima for Avie or Andrea Marcon and the Venice Baroque Orchestra for DG that they sound a little, well, anaemic. Still, for those favouring an intimate string quartet texture filled out by a small continuo section, Alessandrini’s your man.