Laurent de Saint-Luc was born in 1669 into a family of musicians. The reputation of his father, Jacques de Saint-Luc, had gone beyond the borders of the Spanish Netherlands: he was known all the way to Paris – where, in 1647, he performed as a theorbist at the Chapelle Royale. While Saint-Luc’s father was attached to the Chapelle Royale in Brussels from 1639 to 1683, Laurent never appeared among the court musicians. Perhaps we can deduce from this that from 1691, the son was no longer in the southern Low Countries. In addition to no position at the court being forthcoming, the political situation could have led him to leave Brussels, as the League of Augsburg had turned the region into a battlefield – in 1695, a bombardment destroyed two thirds of Brussels. Although France was an enemy, Saint-Luc made for Paris and stayed there a while, and several pieces seem to confirm his presence there in this period: L’Arioste moderne refers to a work by Mme Gillot de Beaucour dating from 1685; La Belle au bois dormant to Perrault’s 1696 fairytale. It was in Amsterdam that his Suites pour le luth avec un dessus et une basse ad libitum, appeared, the Livre premier in 1709, and theLivre second in 1710, but we have nothing which allows us to confidently pinpoint the composer’s whereabouts at those dates. The latest historical event to which his compositions refer (they are often very descriptive: The Defeat of the French by the Germans Before Turin, The Taking of Barcelona, etc.) is the taking of Lille, in October 1708. And after that… a mystery. Thereafter, the composer generally sticks to traditional forms, but which he can still renew, not just prefacing his allemandes with unexpected preludes, but even giving them overtures or a march, while substituting for sarabande and gigue with pieces like Pour endormir l’enfant or Pastorelle. A shiny and new ancient composer, then, and the silvery lutist Evangelina Mascardi gives an intense and tender reading.