You’d have to have a heart of stone not to be stopped in your tracks at the outset of this Franco-Italian programme from three of France’s most interesting new-generation Baroque musicians, flautist Anna Besson, gambist Myriam Rignol and keyboardist Jean Rondeau. The music you’d be hearing is the opening Adagio of a sonata by Jean-Baptiste Quentin, aka le jeune (c1690-1742), which was one of six he wrote to be played by either violin or flute, under the dual influence of Corelli’s seminal Op 5 violin sonatas and the flute adaptations of them that a Paris publisher had produced by the end of the 1730s, inspired by a new breed of French flute virtuosos – notably Michel Blavet (1700‑68) – who suddenly had the technical chops to recreate violin virtuosities on their hitherto non-virtuosic instrument. Quentin’s six sonatas thus lean towards Italy and Corelli in their melodic ideas and the figuration, but feel French in their structures, embellishments and sensibility. Which brings me back to that ravishing Adagio, because its long-spun, improvisatory-feeling lines and poised, easy sensuality are so gloriously French-feeling, even if much of the melodic shaping is straight out of the Italian book – and all further accentuated by the closely bonded poetry coming from these musicians, Rondeau’s harpsichord trills hugging Besson’s, as Rignol tenderly supports from below.

This is the first time these Quentin sonatas have been recorded, and they work as a brilliant foil to the three Corelli Op 5 adaptations punctuating them. The ordering itself is also high-impact. Take the segue from the soft, rich, organ-accompanied fullness of the Largo of Quentin’s Sonata No 10 from his second book of violin and bass continuo sonatas, into the airily gossamer treble landscape you’re dropped into next by Corelli’s harpsichord-accompanied Sonata No 4.

It’s also worth noting that the demands on the flautist sound no less hair-raising than they would have done 300 years ago, and all so gorgeously handled, whether it’s rapid individually articulated notes that began life as much more easily executed violin bariolage, or leaping gigue triplets. Listen, for instance, to Besson’s elegant definition and nuanced colouring in the second Allegro of Corelli’s No 3; or the Allemanda of Sonata quarta from Quentin’s third book, Rignol smartly by her side and Rondeau tickling the textures with his deftly dealt embellishments. Gamba-wise, meanwhile, pause to admire the Quentin Largo given over to Rignol as a warmly curvaceous, organ-accompanied gamba solo.

Then having opened all seductive, they play us out in gently bucolic sunniness via the closing Aria of Sonata quarta from Quentin’s third book. Lovely stuff. All of it.