For the first in a three-release series surveying Rameau’s complete keyboard works, Steven Devine plays on a harpsichord copied from a 1636 Ruckers model. Its sonorities are clear and penetrating yet never strident, and lend themselves both to the music and to Devine’s meticulous technique. Take ‘La Follette’ from the D minor Suite, for example, where Devine shades the repeats with subtle changes in articulation, while imparting a gentle lilt to the rhythm that gives a sense of air between the notes. His legato mastery particularly reveals itself in slower movements, such as the A minor Suite’s Sarabandes. Here you’ll notice Devine’s strongly independent hands, and how his minuscule finger overlappings create sustained, vocally orientated lines. This also pertains to Devine’s introspective and lyrical way with ‘L’entretien des Muses’. By contrast, the first Gigue in the E minor Suite is firmly delineated and detached, and completely different from Céline Frisch’s yielding, softer-grained vantage point.

On the other hand, Frisch conveys the A minor Prélude’s improvisatory nature more convincingly, and plunges into the main tempo with a sweep and gusto that contrasts with Devine’s slower, more matter-of-fact treatment. His agogic adjustments in ‘Le rappel des oiseaux’ transform Rameau’s birdsong evocations into a stiff and halting conversation; it’s a far cry from Frisch’s fluid phrasing or the late Scott Ross’s airborne fingerwork in a 1986 Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert recital. The recorded ambience is clear and discreetly resonant in this digital-only release, and equally attractive in either 320kbps or lossless download formats.