For those who enjoy the spectacle of breathtaking fingerwork and dazzling articulation, who marvel at impeccable accuracy at incredible speeds and who relish dazzling virtuosity irrespective of instrumental discipline, I cannot recommend this disc too highly. For those who enjoy the organ music of Bach, who marvel at the sound of a fine organ and who relish interpretations informed by style, musicality and interpretative coherence, I cannot reject this disc too strongly.

Cameron Carpenter is a brilliant showman and one of the great virtuosos of our time, but his love of spectacle and display of technical bravado seriously oversteps the mark here. Eager to demonstrate his International Touring Organ, a computerised electronic box of tricks which sounds every bit as hideous as it looks, he sheds every vestige of musical respectability in a bid to demonstrate it to the full. This reaches its appalling climax in the B minor Prelude and Fugue where, with changes of volume and tone colour just about every bar, we have a grotesque travesty of one of Bach’s greatest organ creations. It could be argued that Carpenter is forcing us to rethink our approach to Bach, challenging us to look afresh at these pillars of the organ repertory. But this playing is so far removed from any widely accepted ideas of Bach interpretation that it comes across as a mockery, devoid of taste, musical integrity or interpretative logic.

Occasionally – as in the E flat Trio Sonata (No 1) and certain movements of the French Suite – we get a glimpse of what might have been had he concentrated more on Bach’s music than his own showmanship, but you only need listen to the dreadfully disfigured Orgelbüchlein prelude to realise that Carpenter’s ideas on Bach have a long way to go before they should be aired in polite company.