Technical polish, intelligent musicianship, well-reasoned tempi, and scrupulously executed ornaments characterise Charles Owen’s Bach Partitas, along with a rounded and focused sonority largely informed by finger power and hand balance, with little help from the sustain pedal. However, inspiration on the pianist’s part comes in fits and starts. Next to Murray Perahia’s subtle nuances and Angela Hewitt’s dance-oriented aesthetic, Owen sounds comparably square and workaday in Partita No 1 (the Praeludium’s predictable accents, the flat, unlilting Menuets). But the C minor Partita (No 2) comes alive with the Rondeaux’s wonderful rhythmic snap, while the Capriccio features deft linear interplay and a lightness of texture not easily achieved, particularly in Owen’s effortless left-hand skips.

In No 4, the Ouverture’s introduction benefits from Owen’s lean animation, but his unyielding dotted rhythms prevent the music’s grandeur and harmonic tension from registering (think of the classic William Kapell recording or Rosalyn Tureck, for example). Going from Owen’s austere, minimally inflected Allemande directly into András Schiff’s shapely Aria on ECM is like first encountering a Van Gogh painting in a black-and-white reproduction, and then beholding the intensity of the full-colour original. Conversely, the Courante presses ahead with the right hand to the fore, in contrast to the anchoring left hand and firmer basic pulse one hears from Richard Goode and David Fray.

No 3’s opening Fantasia features nice dry-point interplay between the hands, yet misses the buoyancy and inner ‘swing’ distinguishing Schiff’s Decca reading. On the other hand, some listeners may prefer Owen’s energised, almost militant take on the Corrente to Schiff’s softer, more intimately scaled traversal, on Decca, while the Gigue is admirably Glenn Gould-ian in its articulation and wit. I was about to write off the performance of No 5 after its first four bland, undifferentiated movements when the Tempo di Minuetto kicked in and Owen’s tone opened up. The nobility and specificity of the pianist’s phrasing cogently justifies his slower than usual Gigue. I suspect that Owen has lived longest with the big Sixth Partita, judging from the fervency of the Toccata’s rhetorical passages, the Corrente’s underlined syncopations, the Gavotta’s sense of line and the final Gigue’s carefully scaled dynamics. In short, this release could have been better, given its illuminating moments, not to mention the cultivated artistry distinguishing Owen’s previous Janáček, Poulenc and Fauré solo releases.