Sophie Yates’s long relationship with Chandos has resulted in a steady flow of intelligently programmed and neatly played albums, beginning in 1993 with a recital of works by D’Anglebert, Couperin, Rameau and Forqueray (11/93). ‘A real understanding of the French style, so hard to capture’, noted Gramophone’s Lionel Salter. Having in the meantime recorded discs of Balbastre, Armand-Louis Couperin and the complete Rameau, she now returns to the mixed-French format in her 24th release, the main difference from the first being that the chronological focus falls slightly earlier, on the composers who created the French harpsichord school in the 17th century.

The seminal figure is Chambonnières, the man who brought the translucent, broken-chord texture of lute music to the harpsichord, and whose exquisite taste is shown here in pairs of delicate sarabandes (the warm second especially) and chaconnes. It is Chambonnières’s student Louis Couperin, however, who leaves the noblest impression (as he often does) with the powerful contemplation that is his Tombeau de M Blancrocher, with its sonorously haunting bell effects. (Yates resourcefully follows it with a clever little bell-piece by Nicolas Lebègue, previously unrecorded.) Couperin’s imposing, toccata-like Prélude à l’imitation de M Froberger is a stylish homage to a fellow composer, and his Pavanne is rich and eloquent.

Most of the pieces on this album come from the two great 17th-century sources of French harpsichord music, the Bauyn and Druent manuscripts, while a third, the recently discovered Caumont Manuscript, has been raided for the Lebègue and another premiere, an anonymous and less idiomatically interesting transcription of one of Lully’s orchestral chaconnes. Two published works come in the form of a 20-minute suite by D’Anglebert strong in sonority and ornament, and Le Roux’s smaller suite, ending with a proper keyboard chaconne, makes an attractive finish.

We know Yates now for a player of poise and sensitivity. Her instrument – a copy of the handsome Vaudry harpsichord in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum – speaks beautifully under her hands with gentle voice and softish attack, even in the thickest registrations. The musically demanding semi-notated non mesuré preludes by D’Anglebert, Couperin and Le Roux are expertly teased out, and while there are harpsichordists out there nowadays who can make their improvisatory air seem sound more freely spontaneous, or make more play with the music’s inner dialogues, Yates’s confident control of the music shows that her grasp of the French style has not left her.