For many organists the name of Giles Swayne became associated with their instrument with his Riff-Raff of 1983, which set out to bridge what the composer described as the ‘gulf between classical music and its popular roots’. The massive Stations of the Cross, composed a little over 20 years later, is a very different cup of tea, making no concessions in either its scope or its musical language to anything in a recognisably ‘popular’ vein. The scope of the work is dark, dramatic and emotionally intense and the musical language uncompromisingly dissonant.

From the dark, deep rumblings of the opening station (‘Jesus is sentenced to death’), through the almost inaudible agony of ‘The third fall’ and the vicious, swiping clusters of ‘Jesus is stripped of his clothes’, to the palpitations and desolation of the final station (‘Jesus’ body is laid in the tomb’), Swayne’s visionary writing is imbued with a level of powerful dramatic imagery that requires a highly resourceful organ and a particularly inspiring player to bring it off to its full effect.

It gets both here. The 2007 Matthew Copley organ of St Mary’s Metropolitan Cathedral in Edinburgh speaks in a disarmingly direct way with a sharp clarity that can seem uncomfortably harsh but certainly captures the work’s ‘immediacy and humanity’, which Nigel Simeone refers to in his extensive booklet essay. For his part, Simon Niemiński champions this vast score with a compelling intensity that captures the visionary scope of Swayne’s writing magnificently. This is neither a work nor a performance for the faint-hearted; but for those willing to give themselves up to this strangely powerful music, there is much to savour.