As in what has been called the London bus syndrome, ages have gone by without any recording of Elisabeth Jacquet’s keyboard music, and then two come along at once. Scarcely had I finished writing about the newcomer Carole Cerasi’s invigorating disc (Metronome, 4/99) than this one, by the extremely experienced Blandine Verlet, appears. Each has been recorded on a Ruckers instrument – Verlet on the magnificently robust-sounding 1624 harpsichord in the Unterlinden museum in Colmar – and has included one suite from the Second Book (‘that can be played on the violin’) of 1707; but Verlet has one fewer suite than Cerasi from the 1687 Premier livre. She admirably captures the improvisatory character of the unmeasured sections of the preludes to the earlier suites (that in D minor with commanding declamation), contrasting them with the firmly rhythmic sections in Suites Nos. 1 and 2, and responds to the expressive harmonic progressions of the D minor Allemande and the plaintive nature of that in G minor.
Her ornaments are clear and well formed, but her constant habit of playing left-hand notes before those in the right hand (specially conspicuous in the 1707 suite) becomes tiresome, once noticed. Overall, the impression created by her playing is authoritative, with few exceptions, indeed, earnestly authoritarian – compare the A minor and later D minor Gigues (ponderous) with that in G minor (staccato and springy) – and the few light treatments, such as of the 1707 D minor Courante, are very welcome. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this disc is the opportunity it offers of studying three of this remarkable composer’s chaconnes.'