The complete harpsichord works of one of the great master composers for the instrument - indeed, one of the premier composers for any keyboard - all boxed up in one super-budget price package! It would have to be poor stuff not to represent a bargain of mouth-watering proportions, would it not, so how can one even begin to evaluate it in any normal kind of context?

The answer surely rests in how likely one is actually to put any of these 11 discs in the player instead of just admiring them on the shelves. Couperin's creative world can be a difficult one to enter as a listener; not everyone finds its refined expression and intimacy of thought involving, bound up as it is in the Watteau-esque subtleties of early-18th-century French court society, and shot through with enigmatic character pieces named after people and preoccupations long gone and forgotten. Yet once one has put such ephemeral matters out of one's mind - and this set forces one to, since there is little room for explanations in the skinny booklet - then this great music stands revealed as able to speak for itself with all the eloquence of a Chopin Ballade or a Debussy Prelude.

And yes, I for one found that Michael Borgstede's spruce performances of the four published books of Pièces de clavecin plus the eight Préludes from L'art de toucher le clavecin kept me going back for further doses, to revel not only in the sheer poetry, imagination and individuality of Couperin's musical personality, but also its classical balance and poise. The compact orders (or suites) of the later books in particular offer meticulously planned sets of varied yet complementary character pieces in perfect “drop-in”-sized sequences.

Borgstede's two instruments, one Flemish and one German, are not always voiced with perfect precision and their tuning sounds a little tired on occasion, but his playing is consistent in its textural clarity, crisp ornamentation and level-headed grasp of the music. It does not show the lively inventiveness of Mitzi Meyerson's recent single-disc selection on Glossa (12/05), nor the easy grace and aristocratic fine touch of Christophe Rousset's currently unavailable Couperin cycle on Harmonia Mundi. Indeed, if the latter were to re-emerge at any kind of low price it would offer damaging competition to Borgstede's respectful set, but in the meantime this box of goodies certainly looks like one to snap up.