Couperin’s four Concerts royaux – each a suite of about half a dozen devilishly attractive instrumental movements, mostly dances – were written in the 1710s for performance in the private apartments of Louis XIV. They are for one (occasionally two) treble instruments and continuo, and we can well imagine Couperin and his fellow court musicians making free use of varied instrumental colourings and combinations to please the king. This indeed is the way in which they are usually performed and recorded today, but when Couperin published them in 1722 as part of his Troisième livre de Pièces de clavecin he explicitly encouraged their performance as harpsichord solos as well. Pierre Gallon and Matthieu Boutineau, continuo buddies from baroque ensembles such as Pygmalion and Ensemble Correspondances, go a step farther here by arranging them for two harpsichords, following examples by Couperin himself and fellow harpsichordist-composer Gaspard Le Roux, both of whom related that they had done so with other, similar pieces of theirs.

The arranging method is not made entirely clear. Although in places Couperin provides a ready-made second treble (right-hand) line, for the most part there is only one, so there must be a fair bit of invention by the musicians here as there are usually two lines at play; perhaps they emerge partly from skilled realisation of the printed copy’s figured bass. Other audible effects of the transcription process, however, include echo-and-response dialogues, a fuller range of registrations and textures (impressively put to use in the Musette and the Chaconne of the Third Concert), swapping of parts in repeats, the delicious clatter-twitter of two pairs of hands ornamenting simultaneously, clarification of harmonic rhythm and a wonderfully warm filling-out of the sound. The last two in particular are further enhanced in some movements by the addition of lute or guitar.

I know of only one other two-harpsichord recording of the Concerts, that of Laurence Boulay and Françoise Lengellé, made as part of the former’s complete Couperin harpsichord cycle in the mid-1970s and reissued as part of a Couperin anniversary box in 2018 (Erato, 1/19). That one sounds somewhat dry and colourless compared to the generous ring of the newcomer, however, and though the playing is stylish and poised, it is also a tad over-serious compared to Gallon and Boutineau. As they skip their way through the final jaunty Forlane en rondeau, you realise they have brought nothing but joy.