At any point during Friday evening's concert by Les Talens Lyriques, if one had closed one's eyes, one could have been transported from the Edwardian grandeur of the Town Hall to the Baroque splendour of Versailles.
Harpsichordist Christophe Rousset and his three colleagues (Gilone Gaubert-Jacques and Gabriel Grosbard on violins with Atsushi Sakai on viola da gamba) certainly gave us the perfect soundtrack for such a delicious fantasy.
A Marin Marais Suite showcased the sublime subtlety of the night's performances. The chosen movements stressed the introspective Marais, with exquisitely pointed ornamentation and a languid but controlled rhythmic ensemble, fascinatingly close to a romantic rubato.
Sakai thrilled in an Antoine Forqueray Suite, moving from sombre and luminously beautiful chords to will-o'-the-wisp virtuosity, in symbiotic partnership with Rousset.
Forqueray's final movement, titled La Couperin, was omitted; a pity when it would have been the ideal segue into a Suite from Couperin's Les Nations, with its gracefully scurrying Vivement pieces and spine-tingling pungencies when the mood turned to Gravement.
