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Professor Davitt Moroney is one of today's leading experts on Johann Sebastian Bach's harpsichord music and is particularly celebrated for his complete recording of Bach's "Art of Fugue" for Harmonia Mundi. Moroney studied with Kenneth Gilbert and has a penchant for strict authenticity and accuracy. That may be why this recording of Bach's French Suites is longer than most: Moroney includes every note including all the repeats and even the recently-discovered second Gavotte from Suite Number 4. As this 1990 Virgin Classics recording is exemplary in its clarity, the whole makes for some edifying and even exciting listening for those who love Bach in period performance. (You would hardly know you were listening to the same music that Glenn Gould recorded in his inimitable style on a modern piano.)

I do have a couple of quibbles, however. The choice of a copy of the famous Ruckers/Taskin harpsichord of 1780 by John Phillips does yield a beautiful tone throughout, yet this harpsichord is of strictly French provenience and would, in my opinion, be more suited to Rameau than Bach, whose "French Suites" would most likely have been played by the composer himself on a German or Saxon instrument which would have sounded robuster and somewhat less elegant. In fact, the whole recording tends to turn Bach into a French composer: Moroney plays the music very much in the French style, and the music was even recorded in a French château! It should perhaps be borne in mind that Bach never travelled to France; he was firmly rooted in the Eastern-Central parts of Germany.