Of late, if Bach’s St Anne Prelude and Fugue (aka Prelude and ‘St Anne’s’ Fugue, as on an MSR Classics disc played by Barbara Harbach in an all-Bach programme) appears on disc it is heard transcribed for piano – for instance, Sergio Fiorentino (Piano Classics, 6/12) or Markus Becker (Reger’s transcription; Hyperion, 8/09) – or in Schoenberg’s orchestral version (MDG, 4/10 or Warner Classics, 11/15). There are dozens of accounts of the organ original available, the most recent that I’ve noticed being Iveta Apkalna’s vivid account (Oehms, 9/15). Felix Hell’s quickish performance – made in St Mark Lutheran Church, Hanover, Pennsylvania – is a fine if not spectacular rendition.

As with his earlier MSR disc (2005), Bach sits alongside French music – well, Franck’s Pièce héroïque (1878) – and pieces with a North American connection. For many the primary novelty may be conductor-organist William Strickland’s arrangement of Barber’s Adagio for strings (1936 38). This works rather well, the emotion held in check and rapt quietude before swelling out fortissimo.

Eric R Stewart’s Sonnetto (2012) is less obvious or immediate in appeal, a cogently argued if expressively rather overcast single-movement piece. Curiously, the structure is closer to sonata than sonnet form and there is no declared specific poetic inspiration. While Stewart’s Sonetto was written for the organ in Hanover, English-born but Canadian-resident Healey Willan’s Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue (1916) was written just two years after the organ was built. Its tripartite structure comes over reasonably well but, like the disc as a whole, is one for the connoisseur rather than the general listener. MSR’s sound seemed a touch recessed on my player but had more presence on headphones.