Converting a reputation as a distinguished solo harpsichordist into one as an orchestral director is not an obvious path these days. Performances of Bach's Suites are usually led from the continuo keyboard, though Pierre Hantaï would argue that greater control of detail can be best effected with a dedicated conductor at the helm. We know from Hantaï's thoughtful and challenging performances (his Goldbergs as prime examples) that each part of a journey needs appropriate attention with a view to its contribution to the whole. It is this, above all, which provides us with two suites where the dances cannot have felt more mutually integrated than here.
The curtain-raising Fourth Suite is a case in point after a blisteringly incisive, restless and punchy overture – one which both here and in the First Suite carries its Gallic ostentation to heights which Bach may have witnessed in the faux French courts of early-18th-century Germany. Instead of presenting diversely stylised vignettes, Hantaï brings a consistently infectious réjouissance to each movement until the final dance of that name. The scope is one of contained characterisation, carefully chiselled and fleet-of-foot articulation counterbalanced by delicately nuanced legatos and natural resonance.
The great C major First Suite is no less considered and polished. If generally rather clipped and fey, it comes as a welcome release after a hard, edgy, metronomic and small-scale performance of the C minor Sonata for violin and obbligato harpsichord, a work which deserves far greater expressive exploration than we hear from Hantaï and violinist Amandine Beyer.
In sum, here are interesting alternative readings of two great orchestral suites, lovingly nurtured but strangely ephemeral in effect – as perhaps these recreational works should be.

moves close to the top of any list of recommended performances