A few months ago I had a bad Froberger experience. The otherwise interesting and highly individual Russian pianist Grigory Sokolov followed up a slam-bang Beethoven sonata with 40 dreary, soporific, undifferentiated minutes of this stuff. It was pure poison: there's nothing more fundamentally horrible than heavy-duty German Baroque music rendered with grim fortitude by a Russian introvert hell-bent on pursuing each note with the listless determination of a starving citizen scrabbling for grain in a barren field during the Nazi siege of Leningrad. Blandine Verlet deserves my gratitude, then, for restoring my enjoyment of this fine composer. She judges the delicate, improvisatory feel of the chromatically spiced Capriccio VI and the contrasting playfulness of Toccata XVI to perfection, while her acute rhythmic sense fills all of the dances--particularly those in Suites XIX and XIV--with buoyancy and charm. The great Lamentation that opens the latter suite offers an aching expressiveness that never cloys or suffers from immobile heaviness.

There have been fine Froberger collections in the past, notably those by Gustav Leonhardt for Sony and Teldec. Christophe Rousset also programmed a lovely recital for Harmonia Mundi, but this disc beats them all as an ideal introduction to this important keyboard master. As with all recordings by Verlet, her instrument has been carefully chosen to suit the music, and the recording captures its bell-like tones in gorgeously detailed, lucid sound.

--David Hurwitz