Far from being the habitual poor relation among Bach’s keyboard sets, the English Suites have recently enjoyed an unprecedented period of interest. These include four complete recordings within the last year, two for piano (Sverre Larsen and Angela Hewitt) and two for harpsichord from France, Christophe Rousset being one of them. I described his compatriot Blandine Rannou’s approach as adopting a kind of elegant froideur and yet this seems to come as much from her ultimate limitations as a caricaturist as from her capacity for making a classically resplendent sound on her resonant Ruckers-Hemsch copy.

Not without a touch of Gallic cheek, Rousset might have engineered his timing to give us the ‘last word’ in Bach’s formative Franco-German essays. Yet he is not so dissimilar to Rannou in terms of a nonchalant and easy identification with each dance, each highly wrought Allemande and Sarabande here (these are the most substantive remplissage movements in each suite) more fastidiously voiced and assembled than the last. Like Rannou, he begins with the fine A minor Suite and settles to his task with dazzling facility, although he tends to push the Bourrees, Minuets and Gigues, from this work and the F and A major Suites, towards tempi that are all too similar.

Already distinctions between the personality of each work become blurred; there is a fine line between impressive command and when surface filigree (propelled, it must be said, with exceptional rhythmic control) fails to yield to any reflective nuance struggling to emerge. The second Gavotte of the D minor Suite is such a moment where innocent pastoral beauty can manoeuvre its elegant precursor into poignant relief. No chance here as Rousset charges through undeterred.

As in the concerted F major Prelude and the succeeding movements, Rousset rarely yearns to discover what lies behind the notes; even the fantastical inferences of the Sarabande are glibly delivered rather than elevated by slight hesitation, checking or caressing; crucially, time is never taken to contemplate a notable turn in the musical argument. Rousset’s flair is undeniable but it seems to rely almost entirely on a single mood established from the outset.

For all that, there are many moments to admire in purely instrumental terms: the Gigue of the G minor has surely never been so ringing in its affirmation. I also admire his subtly arched style brisé in the opening of the D minor Prelude and the dynamic playing in the allegro of this, the longest movement in the collection.

Rousset’s French attributes bring refinement of a certain kind, especially in his capability to summon a cultivated sound effortlessly as from the ether. Yet these works also demand the desire to comprehend how Bach’s predecessors, the Böhms and Reinkens of this world, reside in the wings: those Germans who transmuted the 17th-century lineage of French clavecinistes into something discernably rooted in a new Teutonic guise, and to whom Bach was clearly paying some kind of homage here.

Rousset doesn’t appear to seek meaning in such traditions – then, or now for that matter – and you can hear it in the shortage of intensity or challenging angles on articulation, emotional cajoling of key points of arrival and a recognition of conceits beyond his own ephemeral imagination. The playing is supremely expert on one level but the musical results are too often superficial and devoid of much beyond the confines of its own making.