Following on from the Devienne bassoon sonatas I reviewed recently (Accent, 11/94), here is another release which shows just how charming French music of the late eighteenth century can be. Claude-Benigne Balbastre was a famed keyboard player who enjoyed much success in the salons and, among other things, invented a new harpsichord stop and a 'fortepiano organise', an instrument which allowed one to play the piano and the organ from the same keyboard.
The four sonatas on this disc were published in 1779 and are of the 'unaccompanied keyboard' type, which is to say they are essentially keyboard sonatas with more or less dispensable supporting parts for other instruments. It was a popular genre during the second half of the eighteenth century, especially in France where it was well suited to the demand for attractive, sociable music for amateurs to play. Often the accompaniment would comprise a violin or two and maybe a bass instrument, but Balbastre really pushes the boat out by including all of those plus ad lib parts for a pair of horns, and a charming and unusual combination it is too (though not, by the way, one unique to Balbastre). The keyboard instrument used here is a harpsichord, which seems right, even though the title-page offers the piano as an alternative; Balbastre was a protege of Rameau, and his style of keyboard writing owes more to the genteel rococo past than to the forward-looking, stormier piano style of some of his Parisian contemporaries.
The pieces themselves, like much French music of the time, are sweetly melodic with a delicious tendency towards touchingly tender minor-key melodies, and the performances here are thoroughly in keeping with the gently entertaining spirit of the music. Even if they are not always technically spot-on, they are happy additions to the catalogue of a company which is developing a welcome line in this kind of music.'