The Pièces de Clavecin of Jean-Henri D'Anglebert are perhaps some of the most beautiful of the Grande Siècle; certainly, they are the most difficult and few harpsichordists do justice to his music. It is pleasing, therefore, to see Rousset's intégrale recording: he is justly renowned as a performer of French music and his recordings for Decca of Rameau and Gaspard le Roux have been rightly acclaimed by the period music fraternity.

Only two main sources of D'Anglebert's harpsichord works remain: those in manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and the 1689 publication, Pièces de Clavecin, in which he astonishingly includes his own transcriptions of music by Lully, integrated within the suites and left unidentified. The most intriguing aspect of D'Anglebert's music is one that is common to most French clavecin composers, the enigmatic préludes non-mesurés. Written mainly in semibreve notation, but with specific indications of rhythm included more conventionally, few contemporary sources specify how they should be performed; more recent authors have tried, but have been largely unsuccessful. It is up to good performers to provide instruction on these musical puzzles, since learning by example seems to be the only sure-fire means of acquiring the art. It is pleasing to see, therefore, that Rousset has provided excellent paradigms, and many students would do well to take his examples as starting points: within skilfully recognised harmonic sequences, Rousset manages to fit D'Anglebert's somewhat awkward figuration without destroying either the underlying sense of harmonic rhythm and direction or the all-important sense of freedom.

The individual movements that make up the suites are well played, although at times are a little on the fast side: one of the more important aspects of performing French harpsichord music is to allow oneself to luxuriate in the harmonies, pause where necessary or use rubato (in its proper meaning) to help build musical climaxes. Rousset does not allow himself this indulgence, preferring instead to push the harmonic rhythm, and thus the music, forward. The implications of this are quite apparent - without suitable rhythmic flexibility, neither ornaments nor inégalité can be executed properly. Thus, Rousset's ornaments are not integrated melodically and his approach to inégalité could be more subtly varied, especially in longer phrases. These are qualities that are slowly dying out in modern performances of French Baroque keyboard music, and, in comparison with Stanislav Heller's fine interpretations of the D and G minor suites for Music Video Europa (MVE 98C01, also available inexpensively from MP3.com), Rousset's come a poor second.

That aside, Rousset's performance is, overall, well prepared and played, and the attractive packaging, well written insert notes and high-quality sound make these discs worthy of purchase by any lover of French Baroque music.

John Woodford