Songs
Some of C.F.A. Pollet's publications are devoted exclusively to songs and his brother, J.B.Pollet published three collections of songs (and no solos). C.F.A.Pollet's other publications, apart from one devoted to sonnates, all include songs. The collections of Carpentier include many songs too.
Cistre songs have fully written accompaniments. In contrast, many English guitar song collections (from this same era) are much more basic and just give the melody of the song with no independent accompaniment or harmony.
The style of writing for the cistre is similar to contemporary Spanish guitar accompaniments (for example those by Giacoma Merchi in his French publications for Spanish guitar). But the cistre arrangements are perhaps more ambitious and although they use a relatively small number of patterns and arpeggios, it would take some skill to play them well.
Songs set for the cistre probably use fewer keys than those set for the Spanish guitar. But the cistre has more basses. Theorboed cistres were popular: seven 'strings' on the fingerboard and another five unstopped basses. The wire-strung cistre with its extra basses would sound very different from the Spanish guitar as an accompaniment to the voice.
Most of the songs are anonymous but some composers are named, such as Mr Albanese and Mr La Borde. These names are familiar from Spanish guitar settings of songs. Many of the songs are opera tunes, from the comic operas that were very popular at that time.
Opera numbers
Opera numbers appear as not only as songs with cistre accompaniment but also as solos. Comic operas (as they are now called today) were very popular in France at this time. Grétry, Gossec, Duni, Monsigny and Dezède are some of the composers that appear in the repertoire. But they are never named in the cistre books; only the opera title as in piece such as: 'Air de Trois Fermiers' .Trois Fermiers was composed by Nicolas Alexandre Dezède in 1777 (he calls it a Comedie Italienne). Dezède also composed Julie and numbers from that opera appear quite often. Gossec's operas: Le Tonnelier, Toinon et Toinette, Le Fête du Village appear quite often too, as does Grétry's Lucille, L'Huron and Richard Coeur de Lion, Rousseau's Le Devin du Village, Philodor's Tom Jones and Pleyel's Le Fée Urgèle.
In Britain at this time there were many publications of opera tunes set for the English guitar but almost always, the arrangement is little more than a transposition of the tunes (without any harmonic accompaniment) to C major. The cistre settings are genuine instrumental arrangements, although sometimes quite crude.
In the 19th century, the six-string Spanish, and seven-string Russian, guitar took on the role of aranging opera music for a plucked instrument.
Dances
Sonata-like allegros are rare, except in the sonnates. There are some preludes, rondos and andantinos but most of the solos that are not opera tunes or song arrangements (brunettes, ariettes, airs) are dances: menuets, allemandes, tambourins, contredanses, gigues. Sometimes they have regional titles: Perogourdine, La Bourbonaisse. And there are many 'anglaise' pieces, sometimes recognisable from English guitar sources.
There is no hint of the 'suite' - the collection of highly stylised dances, beginning with a prelude and on through the allemande, courante to the final gigue. Significantly missing is the courante, that most slippery of genres. The allemande in the time of Pollet and Carpentier is now a rustic dance. The cistre dances often sound like sturdy folk tunes or even nursery rhymes and they are very effective in the 'open', chordal tuning.
Duos
C.F.A. Pollet published one collections of six sonnates by the meiliers auters without mention of the names of the composers. He plunders G. Merchi's Dodici Suonate published in England for the English guitar. Or perhaps we could say he recyles them. The lighter, thinner texture of the English guitar is given a lower, mellower, sometimes rather bottom-heavy sound.
The collections (recueils) of both Pollet and those Carpentier usually include a sonnate or duo. The preferred obligato part seems to be the violin rather than another cistre but there are some duos explicitly for two cistres. Carpentier wrote a duo for cistre and mandolin.
Corrette's mandolin tutor has some cistre pieces tagged on at the end and there is a sonnate for cistre and figured bass. This is perhaps the only example of cistre with continuo.