Album: Jill Crossland, Jean-Philippe Rameau: Pieces for Keyboard (Signum Classics)

Rameau's keyboard music has a French flavour that sets him apart from contemporaries such as Bach and Handel, and some daring strategies, such as the improvisatory manner of the "Prelude" to his Premier Livre de Pièces de Clavecin, which spends the first two minutes in a hesitant dither, as if searching for a way in, before the notes come flooding out in a virtuoso torrent.

Jill Crossland tackles these pieces, ranging from the frolicsome "Gigue" to the limpid "La Villageoise", with due delicacy and wit. One's reminded of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, but with the formality tempered by a blitheness of spirit and a modern elegance that prefigures the Romantics.

DOWNLOAD THIS Prelude; Allemande; Les Tendres Plaintes; Gigue