This excellent exploration of the relationship between Lully and Molière derives from a stage show first seen in Reims last year, much revived since, and at the time of writing still on tour. It draws together songs and instrumental numbers from the intermèdes and incidental music that Lully provided for Molière’s plays and comédies-ballets during their 10-year collaboration, together with a couple of items by Charpentier, who became Molière’s composer after he and Lully fell out in 1671.

Jérôme Correas, the project’s prime mover, argues that the theatrical and psychological surety that Lully displays in his later tragédies lyriques derives from his work as both composer and performer with Molière and his company. There is much here that pre-empts his more familiar scores: haunting slow arias; brief pastoral scenes that say everything we need to know about love, jealousy and reconciliation; and exquisite ensembles, above all ‘Dormez, dormez, beaux yeux’ from Les amants magnifiques.

But we’re also very aware that the loss of Lully’s comedic brilliance was the price of the rift between the two and his subsequent move towards more serious territory. The notorious enema duet from Monsieur de Pourceaugnac is included: Lully played one of the doctors, Molière the patient at the premiere. But even better is a scene for two lawyers from the same work, a preposterous chaconne, in which one repeatedly proclaims that ‘polygamy is a hangable offence’ to the ground bass, while the other loses himself in verbiage in the variations over it. The ensemble ‘A moi, Monsieur!’ depicting a badly behaved theatre audience from Le bourgeois gentilhomme, meanwhile, remains one of the great satirical moments in music.

The performers throw themselves into it with engaging gusto. Correas encourages what he calls ‘parlé-chanté’ for the comic scenes, at which tenor Jérôme Billy and bass Virgile Ancely excel as doctors, lawyers and provincial bourgeois. Tenor Jean-François Lombard and soprano Luanda Siqueira are allotted the more lyrical arias: he’s very eloquent in the First Spaniard’s air from Le bourgeois gentilhomme; she’s particularly ravishing in L’Aurore’s aria from La princesse d’Elide, one of the loveliest things Lully ever wrote. Correas presides over it all with brilliant wit and deep sensitivity. ‘What pleasures we’ve enjoyed’, the vocal quartet sings at the end. You can’t help but agree.