Harpsichordist and conductor Christophe Rousset marked the 20th anniversary of the founding of his ensemble Les Talens Lyriques with a low-key lunchtime Prom that explored what is known in France as La Réunion des Goûts. This involved composers looking to Italy for musical models and aiming to combine Italian sensuality with a formal elegance considered quintessentially French. The phenomenon is primarily associated with the early 18th century, though it glances back to Lully, the most influential figure in 17th-century French music, who was born in Florence and came to France in the entourage of Cardinal Mazarin.

Les Talens Lyriques are among the most stylish of Baroque ensembles, while Rousset himself is an exquisite performer. Couperin's La Piémontaise, however, the last of a series of suites entitled Les Nations, felt overlong (Couperin's responsibility, not Rousset's), despite its graceful closing Gigue and very suggestive Sarabande, all entwined flute lines and close harmonies. Rousset's dexterity was heard to infinitely greater advantage in the first series of Rameau's Pièces de Clavecin en Concert.

Soprano Eugénie Warnier, meanwhile, was the soloist in two contrasting cantatas – Lully's Ah, Rinaldo, e Dove Sei?, an impassioned vocal interlude from his ballet Les Amours Déguisés, and Montéclair's Morte di Lucretia, which was possibly influenced by Handel's cantata on Lucretia's suicide after her rape by Tarquinius. Warnier's tone is cool and pure, and Montéclair's tragic nobility suits her more than Lully's erotic fury. However, she spent too much time with her eyes down, looking at her score, for the directness of either work to come across fully to the audience.

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