When Harold C. Schoenberg described Landowska as "having a brain in every finger", he was right. You notice her rhythm first, which has amazing resilience and equilibrium. Landowska articulates phrases with a fusion of clarity and character that treat the music's dazzling elegance and elemental fervor on equal terms. Rapid passages, for instance, are impeccably proportioned, never for a moment sounding breathless or mechanical. Listeners accustomed to modern Scarlatti practitioners like Gustav Leonhardt and Scott Ross might find Landowska's frequent registration changes jarring, perhaps anachronistic or garish; however, to my ears devices such as the lute stop in the K. 450 G minor Sonata and E major K. 380 add a welcome percussive snap to the underlying pulse.

One selection unwittingly embodies a shuddering sound effect, as a result of wartime conditions in 1940 Paris: during the D major Sonata K. 490 you hear anti-aircraft gunfire in the background. Landowska, however, defiantly continues to play. It's also interesting to compare the harpsichordist's transparent and lyrical 1940 D minor K. 32 to her plusher, more overtly "romantic" 1946 remake (they're both on Disc 2).

Engineer Seth Winner minimizes surface noise to a large degree, yet without sacrificing the resplendence of Landowska's robust Pleyel harpsichord. You could imagine more brightness and bite in the higher register, though, and for this reason I prefer the immediacy and impact of Winner's earlier Pearl transfer for the 1930 Victor "Pastorale" Sonata K. 9 in the collection "Musique Ancienne" (Pearl 9019) to this new remastering. Winner also boosts the midrange and low end spectrum on Landowska's 1923 acoustic D major K. 96 recording but loses clarity and definition in the process compared to Mark Obert-Thorn's airier Biddulph transfer.

Certain sides, such as the C-sharp minor K. 247 and E major K. 206, are blighted with wobbly pitch and sound as if the harpsichord was submerged underwater. But Winner painstakingly corrects the unstable pitch problems inherent throughout the problematic 1939/40 originals. He also acknowledges the elements of distortion in the 35-year-old source tape made from the C.P.E. Bach concerto's original CBC 1943 broadcast lacquers. Still, it's good to have this spirited performance of a work Landowska otherwise didn't record. Denise Restout's superlative annotations round out this indispensable reissue.