The Church and Choir School of St Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, boasts no fewer than five pipe organs, the oldest of which, an Aeolian-Skinner of 1957, graces the choir room. The mightiest and most recent is the Miller-Scott instrument that commemorates the late lamented John Scott, who died before its completion in 2018. Scott was one important figure in a distinguished tradition of British directors of music who have served the church, starting with Thomas Tertius Noble. His recent successors have been Daniel Hyde and the current holder of the post, Jeremy Filsell.

The third volume of Bach’s great teaching work, the Clavier-Übung, published in 1739, was designed specifically for organists (or ‘music lovers and connoisseurs’ as he so elegantly put it on his title-page), to give them thorough instruction in the art of counterpoint and musical structure in 37 movements. Recorded in the final month before lockdown in 2020, Filsell directs the men and boys of the church choir in the Lutheran chorales that precede Bach’s organ settings.

Disc 1 opens with a sparkling account of the St Anne Prelude on the main organ, full of galant pomposity. Although the welcome addition of some hefty reeds in the final page might upset a diehard purist, this results in a high-octane performance, setting the scene for a further hundred or so minutes of masterly insights into this highly organised musical manifestation of Lutheran principles.

Each piece is played with fastidious care, with its mood and scale perfectly matched to an appropriate organ. The four-rank Tower organ, built by Peter Collins Ltd in 2008, for example, is best heard in a ruminatively flowing rendition of Christ, unser Herr, zum Jordan kam, whereas the Taylor and Boody three-manual Loening-Hancock Gallery Dutch style organ, with its Kellner temperament, is ideal for the delicate five part texture of the piquantly canonic prelude on Vater unser im Himmelreich, BWV682 (disc 2 track 2). The following track, based on the same chorale, is beautifully contrasted, played on just a four-foot register on the Martha J Dodge continuo organ (also built by Taylor and Boody in 2001).

Filsell provides yet another masterclass in manual and pedal dexterity, packed with interpretative insights and always mindful of a sense of flow and grace. Recorded by David Hinitt in the very best sound, this is a Clavier-Übung III to savour and revisit.