The complete series of Bach's keyboard music undertaken on the Harmonia Mundi label by Benjamin Alard has many strengths, and this ninth volume demonstrates several of them. Thus, it represents a good place to start for those who want to sample the series. One strength is that Alard has consistenly picked distinctive keyboard instruments, and here, he has outdone himself with a 1740 triple-manual harpsichord by the Hamburg maker Hieronymus Albrecht Haas. Annotator Alan Rubin calls it "the most complex stringed instrument of its period that has survived to the present day," and it is brilliant in addition to being complex. Alard writes of planning to record the opening Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor, BWV 903, on a clavichord but being unable to resist using the present harpsichord, and one can be glad he made the choice he did; this virtuoso work has rarely sounded so various in sonority (and all the richness is nicely captured by Harmonia Mundi in a French museum space). Another attraction of Alard's series is his completist ambition; he includes not only pure keyboard pieces but works in which the keyboard plays a major role. Here there are two: the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D major, BWV 1050, with its famed harpsichord cadenza, and a rarity, the secular cantata Amore traditore, BWV 203, for bass and harpsichord. This work is a true oddity in which Bach's densely contrapuntal accompaniment seems to clash with the Italian vocal line. There is also a Bach transcription of a violin concerto by Prince Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar. The Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 is probably the weakest of the lot here, with its wan one-instrument-per-part performance highlighting intonational problems on its Baroque flute. However, Alard, as a solo player in the two so-called English Suites, is marvelous, lively, and muscular. Sample the opening Prelude of the English Suite No. 6 in D minor, BWV 811. Alard's big series is an exciting thing, and this release should keep drawing new listeners; it made classical best-seller lists in the spring of 2024. ~ James Manheim