That Marin Marais wrote music specifically for the flute was only suspected until a couple of years ago, when two manuscripts were discovered and promptly purchased by Michael Lynn. Although not all the music recorded here is indisputably his and some of it is originally for viol (and transcribed by François Lazarevitch, whose booklet note explains all of this), there is enough credibly to assemble several suites’ worth of music.

Although the flute lacks the viol’s trademark astringency and has (in its lower octave) less power to project, under Lazarevitch’s fingers it rivals the viol’s filigree embellishment (in the opening La polonoise) and tender expression (in the Plainte), and of course it’s easily as light on its feet (I especially enjoyed the Rondeau from the G major Suite). Add accompanists as sensitive as lutenist Éric Bellocq and gambist Lucile Boulanger (both of whom get telling cameos, the former in La guitare and the latter in the famous Les voix humaines) and while away 70 minutes very pleasurably.

There is even the bonus of a short suite on the musette, less often heard nowadays, although Marais names it (indeed alongside the flute) as a possible substitute instrument. Lazarevitch handles it with aplomb, though I confess that its charms elude me, in this repertory at least. (It’s fine in the lower octave but any higher and its tone gets swallowed up by the drone, which also tends to overpower the continuo, which in turn sounds as though it’s in another room.) But a recording that dresses Marais in such variegated plumage deserves attention beyond that of his dedicated admirers or viol enthusiasts.