Andrew Manze brings a missionary zeal to everything he plays and directs, and it was clear from the capacity audience for the English Concert's programme at the Wigmore that his evangelising has made many converts. Certainly it was hard to resist the exuberance with which Manze and his ensemble launched into a concerto grosso by Handel, the D minor, Op 6 No 10, with its scurrying series of allegros and surprise throwaway ending, or ignore their relish in tackling Geminiani's D minor concerto, a series of 23 variations on the famous La Folia theme which get steadily more extravagant and wild.

But it was harder for them to generate the same intensity when accompanying CPE Bach's A major cello concerto. Even in the outer movements the mood is subdued, and the low-lying solo part, though admirably played by Alison McGillivray, was often obscured. There was more to work with in the genuinely introspective slow movement, with its starkly angular theme and punctuated irregular silences; it's the kind of strange baroque invention Manze relishes.

Vocal works sung by soprano Lucy Crowe separated the concertos. In two of them, Crowe was joined by flautist Kay Bircher, floating their duet above pizzicato strings in Thomas Chilcot's Shakespearean setting, Orpheus with his Lute, and decorating the aria Sweet Bird from Handel's L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato with the stylised evocations of a nightingale. But Handel's solo cantata Armida Abbandonata gave the singer something a bit more dramatically substantial. Crowe certainly showed she knows how to pace a scena like this, even if more care with wordswould have given her singing more presence and a sharper dramatic edge, though Manze and his colleagues did all they could to heighten the impact.