L’Alliance Française hosted a concert of baroqueperiod music at Verdmont, the 17th-century Bermuda National Trust home in Smith’s parish, gloriously set in formal gardens flourishing with old roses and fruit trees, and with sweeping views of the South Shore.

The concert was arranged “en hommage à la memoire de Mr Edgar Humann Guilleminot,” who passed away earlier this year and was a leading member of Bermuda’s French community, a former French Consul and philanthropist known for his support of the arts.

As the audience gathered in the gardens for the event, they were welcomed with wine from France and the company of the members and friends of l’Alliance Française before making their way into the main candlelit, panelled rooms of the house, the showcase of an extensive collection of antiques including cedar furniture and portraits along with English and Chinese porcelain.

This concert, with music from a body of works from the 1600s and 1700s was, as one attender called it, “in tune” with its surroundings. The works were chosen by musicians Anne Robert and Laure Morabito, who performed on the “violon” and “clavecin”.

Ms Robert has been to Bermuda to perform with Trio Hochelago, of which she was a founder, for the Bermuda Festival of the Performing Arts, performed in concerts and given master classes for The Bermuda School of Music, and previously performed for l’Alliance Française. So for her this was a return to the Bermuda stage. Harpsichordist Laure Morabito is a highly regarded musician and performer who has specialised in early music. Her brother Marc Morabito is a stalwart of the French community in Bermuda.

The concert opened with GF Handel’s Sonate no 12 en fa majeur in four movements, which began with the majestic stateliness of the Adagio, moving to the very slow and beautiful Largo, achieving a sense of pleading with some lovely ornamentation, and ending with a lively Allegro.

It was immediately clear we were listening to highly accomplished musicians.

The tone of Ms Robert’s violin is spectacular; it is an early instrument that has found, in this modern day, a kindred spirit — the music which the instrument and performer create together is exceptional.

G Muffat’s Passacaglia en sol was a dense, complex and riveting composition for solo harpsichord, and is quintessentially of the Baroque period.

This solo harpsichord performance of this piece by a composer — who despite Scottish ancestry was a native of the Duchy of Savoy — was Ms Morabito’s first solo performance of the evening, and she gave it an adamance and tenacity which made this an inspiring — and awe-inspiring — musical experience.

Ms Morabito followed the Muffat with Extraits de la Suite en la (1728) by JP Rameau, and these, too, were entirely characteristic of the period. A little lighter and liberally ornamented, but no less complex, the result was a romantic rendering of the piece, giving a sense of idyll.

JS Bach’s Sonate no 4 en do mineur BWV 1071 for harpsichord and violin, was at the urging of Ms Robert, performed in order to inspire the audience in a united prayer for harmony and peace, particularly during the evocative and slow third movement, where the sonorous violin dances with a delicately articulated piano.

From the first movement, slow and pensive with soaring moments, to its light, merry Allegro during which the richness of Ms Robert’s performance particularly shone through, and concluding with the vivacious final movement, which the musicians’ imbued exquisite phrasing and dynamics, this was a miraculous experience.

The audience had time to savour that experience during the intermission, in the beautiful gardens of Verdmont where they could stretch their legs, enjoy the clear, moonlit evening and drink French wine.

The second half of the concert opened with JS Bach’s Partita no 2 en re mineur BWV 1004, a masterpiece which was among the first written for solo violin. Ms Robert played two movements: the Allemanda and the Sarabanda, and gave magnificent performances of both.

The Allemanda is exquisitely measured, and yet shaped to move the expression from despair to joy and back again, with the purity in which Bach suffused his works. Ms Robert took full advantage of this movement to show just how acutely lovely it could be. The Sarabanda, in contrast, is notable for its intensity and double stops. Ms Robert executed the complexities of this movement with such exquisiteness, that along with glorious dynamics and expression, it was breathtaking. Known as “The Devil’s Giggle”, N Paganini’s Caprice no 13 was fascinating and entertaining. Evoking a sinister “giggle” from the violin is a triumph of technique; a slightly syncopated beat, perfectly timed and use of double stops — and Ms Robert achieved it.

J Bueno’s Chilena, a modern composer from Ecuador, in contrast to the remainder of the programme, expressed the idiosyncratic folk music of South America, and with its rapid beat and the effect of drumming, this was nonetheless a stylish piece which was at the same time a wonder of technique and of joie de vivre

F Couperin’s Les Baricades Misterieuses put Ms Morabito in the spotlight, and took the audience back to the Baroque period. This composition has a really organic feel and yet is, at the same time, marshalled, providing the opportunity for a subtle approach to the dynamics that could be clearly appreciated by the audience.

A Corelli’s Sonate Opus 3 en fa majeur brought both performers to the stage to send the audience on a journey through its many moods: from the hymn-like and stirring first movement, the high-spirited Allegro, the light and sparkling Vivace, the slow and reflective Adagio and lastly to the lively and lighthearted Allegro.

The conclusion was, appropriately, JS Bach and C Gounod’s Ave Maria and this beautiful performance, breathtaking in its purity of sound, was dedicated to Mr Humann.