I don't like the harpsichord, and I'm not all that keen on baroque music even if you take the harpsichord out
Sir Thomas Beecham: The sound of a harpsichord is two skeletons copulating on a tin roof in a thunderstorm.
I Just listened to a lecture by Prof Greenberg where he quoted this (teaching company, now rebranded Wondrium!, lol.) However, he does say that the harpsichord (named so, I just learned, because it's a horizontal harp!) is a perfect instrument for contrapuntal keyboard stuff like fugues and cannons--no range of dynamics or articulation, so each voice, by necessity, is separate and equal.
I don't know about perfect; I prefer Glenn Gould's piano. However, for the Goldberg Variations, if I'm not playing Gould I pick Chiara Massini on harpsichord. The right hand lagging a little behind the left, is, I think, really nice
And, parenthetically, if in some other universe I were somehow to dance with Ms. Massini, I would be counting the kilometers to Rome.
. Here, in the first set of inventions, she knocks me out with that little smile at the camera. And you can really hear what Prof. Greenberg means re. counterpoint.
OK. In an attempt to get Celtic Rambler to reconsider, here is a second set. The first one, #8, is, I think, particularly cool.
Although, I suppose, I can get not being too enthusiastic about the rest of the Baroque cannon beyond Bach, aside from the greatest hits: Vivaldi, Four Seasons; Pachelbel, Cannon in D (more a passacaglia than a cannon--Greenberg again, lol); Handel, Water Music; Corelli, Christmas Concerto, etc. Bach is not a typical baroque composer. He transcends the typical; he is his own category.
But anyway.