Handel wrote ‘Arresta il passo’ (which Hyperion has renamed after its hero and heroine) for Rome’s Arcadian Academy in 1708. A suitably pastoral cantata for two voices, strings and continuo, it depicts the shepherd Aminta’s wooing of the initially reluctant nymph Fillide in a series of charming arias (some of which Handel reused in Agrippina and Rinaldo).

Denys Darlow conducts a fresh stylish performance with his London Handel Festival forces, recorded live at the Royal College of Music. Textures are clean and rhythms light and resilient, with James Bowman in the title-role leading a consistently reliable team.

Handel tinkered with this allegory throughout his career, producing various versions in Italian and English. The plot is a contest for the heart and mind of Beauty: Pleasure and Deceit encourage hedonism, arguing that "life consists in the present hour." Time and Counsel advise Beauty to forswear worldly pleasures, which "will soon decay". (Guess who wins.) You'd expect the villains to get all the good tunes, but the musical interest here is evenly spread. Time and Counsel get lively and contemplative arias; in particular, Varcoe makes Time's "Loathsome urns" beguiling and chilling. Kirkby, playing a villain for once, is an all-too-convincing Deceit; Partridge as Pleasure, though not ideally youthful, makes some gorgeous sounds. Fisher is well cast as Beauty, and Darlow's direction is a triumph.