The title of this disc is taken from an air by Michel Lambert, who is perhaps better known as the father-in-law of Lully than as a composer. There is no Lully here: but Anne Sofie von Otter, who claims French Baroque music as “a new love affair”, sang a very fine Médée in Thésée two years ago at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées.

And it’s Medea, but Charpentier’s rather than Lully’s, who dominates this excellent recital. In Act 3, Medea takes her revenge on the faithless Jason by poisoning the robe demanded by her rival. Von Otter sounds utterly wretched in Medea’s lament for her lost love; then she intensifies her tone as she summons up demons and monsters. It’s a pity that the last chorus is cut and that both the English and the German versions in the booklet mistranslate “the monsters lose their lives” as “the monsters destroy people’s lives”.

The third composer to be featured is Rameau, with two airs from Hippolyte et Aricie enclosing a sequence of dances and an ariette from Les fêtes d’Hébé. Phaedra is another vengeful character with a sympathetic side. In the first air she prays that Hippolytus will love her; in the second she is distraught at the news – false, in this version – of his death. Von Otter conveys Phaedra’s various emotions with consummate skill. Buy the disc, then move on to William Christie’s complete versions of Médée and Hippolyte et Aricie on Erato.

I mustn’t forget Lambert: three tender chansons, exquisitely sung and played.