Orfeo Orchestra (conducted by György Vashegyi), a prolific performer of French baroque music since its birth, has been honoured in recent years by both Palazetto Bru Zane and the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles (CMBV) with invitations to record a series of explorations of French lyrical music – both baroque and classical.

Before its collaboration with the CMBV, the ensemble made its recording début in French baroque music with a series of three monographic albums dedicated to Charpentier in 1999 (Messe pour M. Mauroy), 2003 (Mass for 8 Voices) and 2004 (Mass for the Dead).

The orchestra's sound is much clearer now, and generously foregrounds violin understudies (melody) with the help of traverso flutes. The verticality of the phrasing and the rounded texture also call to mind ensembles from earlier in the decade: more La Chapelle Royale (with Herreweghe) than Les Arts Florissants or Les Musiciens du Louvre. The singers are almost all Hungarian, and they use freer, older singing techniques, comparable to those used by the best French singers in the 1990s. Moreover, the sopranos and bass singers have an ample power which isn't so usual for recordings of works from this period.

As the records progress, the colour changes – in fact, there's a clean break between the 2003 and 2004 records: the attacks become more decisive, the strings sound more dense, the flutes less strained in the final mix. It's as if the orchestra had made an aesthetic leap in time from 1989 to 2005. The same applies for the pronunciation of the Latin: ultramontane for the first record, and Gallic thereafter. In any case, these are very spirited performances, sung most generously, and with a depth of sound that's rare in this repertoire.