The Repast Baroque Ensemble members approached arranging Bach’s Goldberg Variations by first singing through the score and then trying out various instrumental combinations. They decided, however, not to touch the Aria, nor Variations 1, 5, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 28 and 29, leaving the solo harpsichord originals intact. Consequently, the end result lacks a sense of cumulative flow and underlying continuity, although individual movements contain imaginative strokes of instrumentation. In the French Overture (Var 16), for example, the bassoon and Baroque flute sonorities achieve an assiduous and witty blend that compensates for the harpsichord’s less-than-assertive continuo function. By contrast, the continuo is more prominent in the lilting Var 7 (buoyed by subtle cello pizzicatos) and in the canon at the unison (Var 3), where Bach’s close-lying imitative writing gains clarity by virtue of timbral distinctions between flute and violin.

Period-instrument cognoscenti will look upon the musicians’ agogic phrasings and minuscule dynamic swells as stylish expressive devices, yet I find them to be fussy and predictable mannerisms that pull attention away from what’s really going on in the music. Var 18, the canon at the sixth, is a particularly telling example of what I mean, where the choices regarding dynamics and articulations sound exaggerated and artificially imposed, and ultimately obscure the music’s inherent conversational nature and rhythmic bounce. The musicians play Var 4’s contrapuntal lines perfectly, yet lose sight of how Bach’s syncopations propel the variation forwards. They also pull back and tiptoe around movements that cry out for rhythmic vigour and a natural dramatic build, as in the Quodlibet, Var 30.

Similarly, rhythm proves harpsichordist Gabe Shuford’s undoing. His prosaic and low-energy playing deflates the giddy rush of Var 14’s neo-Scarlatti runs and reduces Var 20’s virtuoso scintillation to a dry, tensionless exercise. True, he favours sensitive registrations and subtle ornaments, yet so do dozens of stronger soloists who’ve recorded the Goldbergs on the harpsichord, including Mahan Esfahani (DG, 10/16) and Andreas Staier (Harmonia Mundi, 6/10) among recent favourites. MSR provides superbly detailed and lifelike engineering.