The music of Claude-Bénigne Balbastre (1727‑99) “embodies the last flowering of the French harpsichord’s repertoire”, according to Sophie Yates, whose refined musicianship and dulcet-toned double manual harpsichord copied from a Jean-Claude Goujon 1748 Paris model do stylish justice to the composer’s Pièces de clavecin (1759). Perhaps the resonant, slightly distant yet intimate engineering adds a patina of gentleness to the results, taking an edge off note attacks that sound more percussive with closer microphone placement.

Yates favours steady yet flexible tempi, plus tasteful embellishments that do not pull focus from the music’s melodic trajectory. In “La Malesherbe”, for example, compare Yates’s smooth arpeggiated accompaniment in support of a simply spun-out right-hand melody alongside Elizabeth Farr’s equally suave yet expressively incongruous rhythmic distensions, or how her swifter pace seems arguably more appropriate to the opening section’s disarming lilt than the comparably direct yet slower, more sober (albeit more vividly engineered) traversals from Jean-Patrice Brosse and Ursula Duetschler. Her rendition of “La Lugeac” is a truer “giga” than most, and she manages to bring out the music’s unbuttoned, almost Handelian vigour without sacrificing grace or lilt. At the same time, Yates is not averse to shaping the right-hand phrases of “La Morisseau” freely against a relatively steady left hand, and does so with a better sense of timing and proportion than Farr, whose bigger instrument seems to overpower listeners rather than invite them in, so to speak. Although I prefer the clean sonic immediacy and comparable artistry distinguishing the aforementioned Brosse and Duetschler releases, Yates’s intelligent, polished playing will surely satisfy collectors seeking these works.