The Argentinian, Dutch-trained harpsichordist Guillermo Brachetta begins his journey through the four harpsichord books of François Couperin with Book 4, and why not? Compared to the more straightforward dance-archetypes of Book 1, the delicate and often ambiguous tone-paintings of this final volume, published three years before the end of the composer’s life, offer more for performers to get their teeth into. Refinement of technique and expression, and a readiness to surrender to the music’s seductive will rather than obsess too much on their meaning, are what is required here. This heads straight to the heart of Couperin.

Brachetta is certainly a fine harpsichordist, capable of pristine clarity of texture (just listen to the lucid interplay of ‘Les Gondoles’), impressive dexterity in both hands of the sort that makes it possible to execute the music’s many trills and turns with unfailing neatness and control, so that none seems an intrusion (try ‘La Sézile’ for that), and a silken legato that makes the instrument sing (almost any track). The instrument in this case is a copy of a 1769 Taskin, resonant but clear, and with the sweetest of upper registers. It may not have the booming bass and overall strength of character of the stunning 1738 Vater used by Carole Cerasi on her recent recording of Book 4 (part of her 10-disc set of the complete Couperin – Metronome, 6/19), but it is at every point extremely pleasant to listen to.

Like Cerasi, Brachetta does not get unduly distracted by the descriptive strain in Couperin’s music, keeping each piece coherent in itself and letting the music’s minute subtleties do their work. His playing and touch tend more towards delicacy and beauty than hers, and indeed pieces such as ‘L’Epineuse’ and ‘La Convalescente’ are truly exquisite in his hands. His way of spreading chords is often ravishing. This, it seems, is his natural manner, and the fact that in more grandly assertive pieces such as ‘La Trophée’ and ‘La Pantomime’ he does not shake the floor as much as Cerasi does is, I think, only partly down to the difference in their instruments. If there are a few pieces (such as ‘Les Pavots’) that don’t quite lift off the page, there are many more that are delicious to the ear. Not at all a bad way to start off with Couperin then.