Recorded between 1998 and 2001, and first released in two parts a decade ago, these four discs present all 48 Preludes and Fugues on four different organs, two of which can trace their origins to Bach’s time; indeed, the organ of the Maartenskerk in Zaltbommel in the Netherlands was originally built (by Verhofstad) the same year that Bach completed Book 1. It used to be argued that since Bach intended Das wohltemperirte Clavier as a demonstration of equal temperament and that since organs of his time did not have equal temperament, performance on an organ was inappropriate. However, Bach scholarship has moved on since then and some, at least, were almost certainly conceived as organ music.

Frédéric Desenclos certainly makes a convincing case. The first two from Book 1, played on the charming instrument of the Oud Katholieke Kerk in The Hague – originally built by Garrels in 1726 but substantially now the work of Flentrop in 1994 – are presented as a convincing organ allegro and a toccata in the true north German style, while the Fugue of Book 1 No 14, with its long-breathed subject, seems utterly at home on the 1994 Freytag instrument of Saint-Vincent, Lyons. He also underlines on the Zaltbommel organ the claim he makes in his booklet essay that the Prelude of Book 2 No 19 is ‘a worthy adjunct’ to the Duetti of the Clavierübung III.

Where Desenclos fails to make it sound idiomatic is as much down to his marked aversion to anything approaching a legato touch as to anything inherent in the music itself. Where a glutinous organ legato might seem the perfect way of presenting the Prelude to Book 1 No 22, Desenclos opts for an angular plod, weighed down terminally by a 16 foot manual Principal. Similarly the Fugue subject of Book 2 No 8 is reduced to a series of jabbed pitches, not helped by the rather hoarse sound of the 1999 Mahler organ of the Church of Saint Étienne de Baïgorry.

Details of registration are given, not always very clearly, but there is scant information about the organs themselves, while the printed essays seem occasionally confused. The recordings, though, are clear and well balanced, and Desenclos’s strict adherence to the printed score is commendable, making no attempt to nudge the music into a more receptive form for performance on the organ.