This attractive album focuses on the young and prolific Handel during his years of residence in Italy, the most celebrated product of which is his setting of Dixit dominus from 1707. However, at the invitation of various aristocratic patrons in Rome and Florence around this time, he also composed many secular cantatas which have only in recent years received their due attention on record; not least thanks to Brilliant Classics, who have published four volumes of Italian cantatas with the Contrasto Armonico ensemble