Forqueray’s 32 feisty harpsichord character pieces, published in Paris in 1747, occupy a special place in the repertoire, not least because they are the combined work of two (maybe three) people and because they are intimately bound up with the dying throes of the French viola da gamba repertory. It was as works for gamba and continuo by Antoine Forqueray that they started life, but when son Jean-Baptiste published them two years after his father’s death he also offered them in transcriptions for solo harpsichord (for which he may have enlisted the help of his harpsichordist wife, Marie-Rose). The further extent of his compositional or editorial input is unknown – he claimed authorship of three of the pieces himself – but what is clear is that the successful results mix virtuosity with a low-lying tessitura and harmonic robustness that transfer well to the mellow resonance of the French harpsichord.

Readers familiar with Blandine Rannou’s Rameau will know that this noble sound is one she likes to savour to the full in broad tempi and a weighty interpretational approach that allows the music its full richness; in places here she even adds extra notes and lines to the texture. The best of her can be heard in pieces like “La Sylva”, “La Laborde” and “La Régente”, though there are others where the texture becomes congested. Still, she is a player of considerable class, and it is a particular joy to hear the skills in ornamentation, inégale and good old legato which enable her to spin a line so affectingly and naturally in “La Buisson” or “La Tronchin”. A bit of false track-listing (the Fifth Suite actually starts with “La Rameau” and “La Guignon”) should not deter French harpsichord lovers from acquiring this disc.