What comes across irresistibly in this new recording is the physical pleasure of playing Bach on a piano. Rhythms are lightly sprung, energy is propulsive, accents are unapologetic and the music dances. Tharaud is often faster than Hewitt in her superb readings with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, notably in the D minor Concerto, where his opening chords launch a movement of great vivacity. At times he can even make Gould sound a touch stolid (though that’s exacerbated by the Columbia SO, which sounds positively portly alongside the leaner, meaner chamber orchestras favoured today). Tharaud shares the studio with Bernard Labadie’s Violons du Roy, which use modern strings but Baroque bowing techniques, and keep vibrato for expressive effect. That it doesn’t sound at odds with the piano continuo in the tuttis says much for their shared vision and Tharaud’s lithe touch, never over-weighting the texture, something which Perahia also judges to a nicety. Hewitt solves the problem in a different way – with a harpsichord, which adds a pleasing extra dimension to the colour. My only doubts arose in the Concerto for four keyboards, for which Tharaud has multitracked the solo parts. It sounds more reined in than the other works here, ironically perhaps as a result of the recording technique.

That he can spin a line is amply demonstrated in the arrangement of the Marcello Adagio, originally for oboe, which reminds us that Baroque composers were on to the potency of repetition long before minimalists got in on the act. But when it comes to slow movements, no one can quite rival Perahia for poetry, especially in the quietly solemn centre of the G minor Concerto, though here Tharaud’s semi-period players help create a tension between new and old that is highly effective. Overall, then, a disc that deserves to be up there with Perahia and Hewitt.