Perhaps collectors know Matthew Halls best as the conductor of the Retrospect Ensemble and former artistic director of the King’s Consort. However, he’s a capable keyboard artist in his own right and the three major works encompassing his debut harpsichord release give ample voice to his prowess. The main event, Bach’s Goldberg Variations, is split between two discs. Disc 1 opens with the Sarabande con partite, a composition whose actual authorship remains highly contested yet whose formal trajectory and rich harmonic invention make for a substantial curtain-raiser. Similarly, the Goldbergs couldn’t have a more poignantly intense “aftershow” in the form of the (authentic) Aria variata.

The first thing listeners are likely to notice is how gorgeous the two-manual Ruckers/Hemsch model harpsichord by Ian Tucker sounds via Linn’s exquisite engineering. Rarely has a harpsichord been captured on disc with this blend of ambient warmth, definition and vibrant overtones. It allows one to appreciate Halls’s subtle legato fingering with its discreet “overlapping” effects, particularly in Variations 10 13 and in the two-manual Var 17 with its leisurely lilt. Halls is not averse to changing registrations midstream, although pared-down sonorities inspire his finest work, such as in Var 21 (the canon at the seventh), and Var 19’s harp-like lute stop. Halls allows rhythmic leeway for ornaments to speak, although, more often than not, his rhetorical elongations cause him to lose sight of the basic pulse. You particularly hear this in Vars 8, 28 and 30 (the Quodlibet) and the Aria da capo, which all slightly yet noticeably slow down as the performances progress. And given the harpsichordist’s energy and élan in Vars 1 and 16 (the French overture), I was surprised by his relatively timid and small-scale execution of Var 29’s alternating chords and whirlwind passagework. In sum, there’s much to admire about Halls’s Goldbergs, yet, overall, BWV990 and 989 elicit more affirmative, fluid and consistent interpretations.