Although the Golden Age of the Town Hall Organist is – alas – just a distant memory for most of us, it is good to hear a large, colourful late-Romantic concert organ being put through its paces with such assurance and skill as John Kitchen does at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall.

Rescued in recent years from decades of decline and disuse, this 63 stop instrument by Norman and Beard of 1914 is now sounding better than ever, helped by Paul Baxter’s magnificent sound engineering. Half of Kitchen’s programme is given over to his own idiomatic transcriptions of music by Sullivan, the rest to the music of Michael Thomson, a composer with a lifetime’s connection with St Machar’s Cathedral in Aberdeen, who died in 2016. Time spent playing in that city’s Capitol Cinema had clearly rubbed off on Thomson’s style, which harks back to a simpler age where melody was king, with a strong reliance on predictable sequences, rather foursquare phrasing and toe-tapping rhythms. In his notes Kitchen refers to the influences of Cocker, Coates and CS Lang. I’m not so sure: their innate genius is sadly in short supply here. However, the lively Parc de Paris valse abounds with Gallic élan and the Bouquet of Roses medley is spun together with considerable skill. Alas, Thomson’s Salute to Busby Berkeley would have been much more effective on a real theatre organ.

Kitchen’s love of Sullivan’s wonderful music shines through, especially in the two substantial overtures and the sparkling ‘Cachucha’ finale. The organ’s softer stops are utterly charming, for example in ‘The sun whose rays’ (from The Mikado) and The Gondoliers’ Gavotte. The string stops are also used to great effect.

Finest of all is the Introduction to Act 3 of The Tempest, transcribed by Edward Bairstow. This is a real find, full of charm and played – as with everything else on this disc – with great warmth and shapeliness.