The crisp and rhythmic playing of Tom Winpenny, coupled with a colourful use of the unspoilt Victorian Binns organ (1892) at Queens’ College, Cambridge, brings these performances of Stanford’s organ works to life. The Fantasia and Toccata in D minor, Op 57, and the Postlude in D minor, Op 105 No 6, often feature in organ recitals today, but how often have they suffered from dreary registration and tempi that drag? Winpenny’s interpretations are refreshingly vital and compelling.

His imaginative and carefully devised programme also reminds us that Stanford’s organ works repertoire began early with the Bachian Prelude and Fugue in E minor (1874), in reality a student work but one that, like much other early Stanford, shows many indications of the flair that would rapidly emerge in the late 1870s.

It is good to hear the somewhat neglected Prelude in Form of a Chaconne, Op 88 No 2, a dark, brooding neo-Baroque creation full of inventive harmony, and In Modo Dorico, Op 132 No 1, which Stanford transcribed from his piece for piano (and which found its way into his last opera The Travelling Companion), a powerful, austere example of Stanford’s consummate assimilation of modality. Both versions have their merits – the piano version has more poetry but the modal idiom chimes with the sustained tones of the organ.

One of the most attractive features of this recording, along with its generous booklet and informative notes, must be the inclusion of later works such as the Canzona, Op 116 No 2, the sprightly but rarely heard Epithalamium, Op 182 No 5, and the concert piece By the Seashore, Op 194 No 1, all of which, as premiere recordings, make this disc particularly rewarding listening.