The delightful scenario of L’Apothéose de Lully imagines the composer Lully, one of François Couperin’s forebears at the court of Louis XIV, being wafted up to Mount Parnassus by Apollo.

There, he meets the Italian muses, and the music becomes that synthesis of the French and Italian styles which Couperin so admired. All of this is captured with grace in Arcangelo’s playing under its founder, Jonathan Cohen.

The other work on the disc is the sacred Leçons de ténèbres, sung with purity by sopranos Katherine Watson and Anna Dennis and revealing another side to Couperin’s art.