Though Bach's French Suites were intended for the harpsichord, only out-and-out purists would object to them being played on the piano; but the question is how they're played. Those who don't want these works on the original instrument but wince at the quirkiness of Glenn Gould's interpretations (whatever their quality as sheer pianism) at last have an alternative; but it's not one I personally am very happy with. Joanna MacGregor is a neat-fingered and fluent player, and when she purls nimbly through the E flat Air, the G major and E major Courantes, the E major Gigue or, springily, the G major Gigue (marred by an ill-considered final bar), things could scarcely be better. But when she swoons through the C minor Sarabande, employs inappropriate staccato in the E flat Sarabande, tears like a speedboat through the G major Gavotte and applies heavy rubato to the Loure, this seems stylistically very questionable for Bach.
In view of the considerable divergences in the sources, it should be said that MacGregor adopts a 'traditional' text, without the two extra suites found in Gerber and played by Hogwood (L'Oiseau-Lyre, 8/86) and Moroney (Virgin Classics, 4/91) in their recordings, but adding the second Minuet in the C minor Suite. Only in the repeat of the D minor Sarabande (which suffers from some coy touches by her) does she add significant variants: she does not adopt notes inegales, and plays the square-wheel version of the D minor Gigue instead of interpreting it a la francaise in compound time. These suites are surely intimate music rather than for a big hall, and the present resonant recording, made in an obviously empty hall (The Maltings, Snape) seems to me misjudged, robbing the performance of clean-cut incisiveness and producing overhangs of tone in the Courantes of the Second and Third Suites and the Allemande of the Fourth.'