This two-CD set includes performances of both Lully’s original opera orchestra music and Anglebert’s harpsichord transcriptions. To them, Céline Frisch has added two of Anglebert’s harpsichord suites and five organ fugues (based on the same theme) from his 1689 printed edition.

I began by listening to the second disc, containing Lully’s originals, and then turned to the first to hear Frisch playing Anglebert. It is cumbersome to switch back and forth but well worth the trouble. Frisch appears, in fact, in both sets of tracks. Café Zimmermann – a band of 20 – play with spirit and command of Lully’s theatrical idiom but without the lavishness of the large orchestras engaged to perform and record complete operas.

Interestingly, the harpsichord versions of Lully’s music seem tuneful by comparison with Anglebert’s suites; and the lush ornamentation the latter provides seems intended less to impress by its virtuosity than to evoke the greater resonance and variety of timbre of an orchestra. As a soloist, Frisch indulges in a greater degree of inégalité than an orchestra can afford, though her playing is never mannered. There are movements, such as the ‘Ritournelle des Fées’ from Roland, in which the orchestra has the upper hand by virtue of its greater capacity for colour and articulation. The really big movements, especially the overtures and the more ceremonial movements, like the ‘Air d’Apollon’ from Le triomphe de l’Amour, still come off best when played by an orchestra.

Frisch has nearly always taken her cue from the orchestral versions. The exception comes in the ‘Ouverture’ to Le carnaval ou mascarade. Café Zimmermann, under the leadership of Pablo Valetti, infuse their performance with a sense of excitement while Frisch’s take on Anglebert’s has an air of melancholy about it, underscored by the piquancy of the harpsichord tuning. I admired her perform- ances of the Sarabande ‘Dieux des Enfers’, the expressive gaillardes and the exuberant ‘Passacaille’ from Armide. These are musicians to watch out for.