Christophe Rousset Les Talens Lyriques Lully

Christophe Rousset is one of the finest and most exciting harpsichordists, and as a conductor is a leader in the late 20th century revival of French Baroque music. After studying piano as a boy, he became deeply interested in the harpsichord at the age of 13. He studied with Huguette Dreyfus at the Schola Cantorum in Paris and, from 1980 to 1983, with Bob van Asperen at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague. He won a special certificate of distinction at the Schola Cantorum and, in 1983, the first prize at the International Harpsichord Competition in Bruges.

Here is a very special recording devoted to early 18th-century dance music for which we have recently rediscovered choreographies from the period. Such a discovery may well come as a surprise, since it is not generally realised that, long before the proliferation of various 20th-century systems of dance notation, an earlied system had already been invented and them forgotten, only to be rediscovered within the last few years.

Drawing on its vast catalogue of Baroque recordings, French label Naïve has assembled a selection of opera and ballet extracts from Lully, Charpentier, Couperin and others that the Sun King would have enjoyed. The disc itself is nicely layered in mood and energy, showing off some of the world's finest period-performance players at their best - including harpsichord master Skip Sempé, the Talens Lyriques and Canada's own soprano Karina Gauvin.