It is one of the idiosyncrasies of the organ repertoire. Elgar’s Organ Sonata in G, dating from 1895, includes passages which are pretty near impossible for most organists and out of the range of many organs. It seems to have been conceived orchestrally (as Gordon Jacob’s orchestration of it proved pretty conclusively) and there is much to support the argument that it served as something of a trial run before Elgar tackled his first fully fledged orchestral symphony over a decade later. This might lend legitimacy to those attempting to transcribe Elgar’s symphonies for the organ; but his mastery of an orchestra was pretty well complete by the time he completed his First and it has never occurred to me that either it or the Second Symphony of 1913 might be successfully transcribed for the instrument. Until now.

David Briggs, whose mastery of the Francophone improvisation is such that there are those who cannot imagine a Briggs performance without one taking centre stage, has also become one of the great transcribers of our time and, with an impressive track record of complete symphonies by Schubert, Tchaikovsky and Mahler, he proves the ideal person to turn Elgar’s distinctly orchestral textures into idiomatic organ music. We might even excuse him his bit of egotistical licence in a meandering booklet-note. Indeed, Briggs’s naive writing is the only weakness here, and even then there is something rather sweet about his irrelevant flights of fancy (many of which seem to be promoting Apple products). These include suggestions as to what ‘JS Bach would have had on his iPod’ (Vivaldi’s L’estro armonico, de Grigny’s Première Livre d’orgue and ‘certainly Buxtehude’s complete improvisations as a download’), as well as on his iPhone (‘the timetables for Air Leipzig’ and links to his website offering PDFs of his cantatas ‘for 100 euros each’ – much as Briggs offers PDFs of his own transcriptions on his own website). But it does include at least one useful insight into these transcriptions: ‘With Elgar, it’s not necessary to reduce too much or to leave too much out.’

Curiously, while they sound utterly convincing as organ music, after a while you forget that these are organ transcriptions and, whether by association or clever registration, the original orchestral colours flood the mind; how fascinating it would be to hear this before hearing Elgar’s originals. Denied that opportunity, I can only say that as a huge fan of Elgar, not least these two symphonies, I have few reservations in what Briggs has done to them here; they are impeccably faithful to both the detail and the essence of Elgar’s original scores, and the only lingering doubt hangs over the very opening of the Second Symphony, which seems rather too fussy.

Briggs’s playing is magnificent, an object lesson in virtuosity (there’s a simply breathtaking account of the First Symphony’s Scherzo), and the choice of the Worcester Cathedral organ adds a marvellous touch of both geographical authenticity and organistic opulence (only at 7'12" in the First Symphony’s finale does Briggs’s registration seem incongruous). All of this is captured in a stunning recording from Acclaim Productions. A triumphant achievement in every respect.