A world-premiere recording of elegant harpsichord suites from the high French Baroque.

Philippe-François Véras (c.1690-1742) published a single volume of Pièces de Clavecin in 1740 in Paris. Following the example of Couperin, he arranges his four suites in ‘Ordre’. Much about his life and work remains unknown and mysterious, but a firm fact is that Véras was organist at Saint-Maurice in the city of Lille.

The style of Véras owes more to his Italian than his French contemporaries, in the shape of the melodies and strong pulse. ‘La Voilliante’ in the First Ordre is in any case subtitled ‘according to Italian taste’.

There is no real artistic distinction between the concept of the ‘suite’ and the ‘ordre’, but in this case the complete lack of a dance sequence (such as the usual Allemande-Courante Sarabande-Gigue) may justify the employment of the term Ordre instead of the more popular Suite.

There are, however, dances throughout the four Ordres: tambourins, rigaudons, rondeaux and badineries. The single example of the Sarabande bears a resemblance to a piece by Antoine Forqueray published seven years later.

The titles of most of the movements also follow Couperin in their vividly illustrative and yet now opaque character descriptions – whether of archetypes or individuals.

Who was ‘La Duchesse’ of the Second Ordre? Who is the ‘Ridiculous Man’ who opens the Third, and who is the ‘Lady of the Manor’ in the Fourth? We will never know, which makes the elegant outlines of their identities in music all the more tantalising.

Simone Pierini has made a specialty from such dedicated acts of revival. This album of Véras follows other first recordings on Brilliant Classics, of music by Le Bret and Agostino Tinazzoli.

According to Gramophone, reviewing the Le Bret album, ‘His playing offers crisp clarity of texture and ornament, and shows a sure hand in the flashier moments.’