Jean Benjamin de La Borde (1734 94) – France’s own Charles Burney – composed three beguiling collections of accompanied songs few of us have heard. The 13 ravishingly sung here by the soprano Maïlys de Villoutreys, sympathetically accompanied by Trio Dauphine – together with Petrini’s Sonata for harp (dedicated to a Mlle de La Borde), charmingly performed by Clara Izambert – should encourage an appetite for more recordings of music from the Louis XVI era.

La Borde, who lost his head in the closing days of the French Revolution, is best known today for his four-volume Essai on music (1780). His chansons are small-scale musique de chambre, requiring the services of a skilled vocalist, violinist, harpist and harpsichordist. La Borde cast the violinist in the role of a second soprano and combined harp with harpsichord to produce a lively, resonant yet delicate accompaniment. His tunes are characterised by expressive upward intervals, such as the octaves in the lullaby ‘Dors, dors’, and sinuous diminutions as in ‘Lugubre nuit’. The rapport between singer and instrumentalists is always collaborative, and the beautifully shaped solo instrumental introductions and interludes, obbligatos and ornamentation enhance the exquisite pleasure of the music.

The Rameau and Forqueray items, chosen because of their connections with the La Borde family, belong to the Louis XV era and date from the 1740s. Marie van Rhijn performs Forqueray’s La Laborde with exceptional introspection. Possibly more contentious is Trio Dauphine’s arrangement of the Rameau Concert, which alters the essential balance between the players, turning a work for harpsichord and two concertante instruments into a work for solo violin and sumptuous plucked instrumental accompaniment.

Provocative? Mais oui! Pleasurable? Bien sûr!