Sir Christopher Wren’s church of St Bride’s, with its famous ‘wedding cake’ steeple, is a familiar sight to Londoners but this is the first time that its 1957 four-manual organ has been heard on CD as a solo instrument. Some 4000 pipes are crammed in behind the west wall; the result is a wealth of imitative orchestral stops and lush quiet registers but unfortunately a rather spiky, unappealing tutti. The recording captures the organ’s entire sound spectrum and is so clear and faithful that one can hear the clicks and hisses of the nearly 50-year-old mechanism.

Malcolm Riley’s fine performances encompass a rewarding collection of tuneful pieces with delicious harmonies. The Victorian and Edwardian grandeur of Elgar and Parry pervades the works by Farrar and Ernest Macmillan, while Riley’s own compositions doff a cap to Binge, Coates, Ellis, Farnon and other masters of British light music. The two major works by Wesley and Bernard Walker (his Legend) repay repeated hearings and one can revel in the lovely influences of Delius and Howells in the pieces by Self and Whitlock. Full marks to Riley for his constant support for the latter composer, and indeed for his imaginative choice of such pleasing British organ music.