This panoramic traversal of Parisian organ music provides an excellent introduction to the improviser’s art, a tradition captured from the 1920s onwards on 78rpm discs, player-organ rolls and latterly on magnetic tape. Armed with an acute inner ear, extraordinary patience and a comfortable pair of headphones, a team of present-day organists have been slaving away, transcribing the hundreds of effusions which poured out of Pierre Cochereau.

Vierne’s Improvisations date from 1928-30. Restricted to four-minute sides, the almost-blind maître produced two run-of-the-mill marches and a more deeply moving and lyrical Méditation. Dupré’s Variations (New York, 1929) are rather second-drawer, the familiar strain being given lacklustre treatment, although the adagio variation has a shimmering beauty. The penultimate fugato fudges the “subject” somewhat before the predictable toccata-like conclusion. Things improve with Tournemire’s sizzling blockbuster, improvised in Sainte-Clotilde in March 1932.

The rest of the disc is given over to Cochereau. “Frère Jacques” has probably never had such a bombastic opening! Despite occasional longueurs, the cumulative effects are of grandeur and tremendous energy, fusing together the church style with elements of the cinema soundtrack. The five-movement Symphonie (San Francisco, 1972) uses a theme by Frescobaldi and the French carol melody Picardy. Needless to say Blackburn’s magnificent organ copes brilliantly and Hammond has everything well under control. The recorded balance is superb.

Vierne’s Pièces de fantaisie (1926-27) reveal the harsh despair of a man who had suffered many vicissitudes. The disc from Carus is the first to use the new Vierne critical edition. The organ was built by the French firm, Kern, in 2005 and has all the prerequisite colours, recorded quite closely in the warm acoustic of Dresden’s Frauenkirche. Kay Johannsen draws the contrapuntal lines with great care, sometimes with a little too much caution: in “Naiads”, for example, the nymphs sound as though they’ve been on too many health and safety courses! The highlights include the tone-poem “Clair de lune” and the Quasimodic homage to Notre-Dame, “Gargouilles et chimères”. Alas, Carus’s poorly translated notes reveal next to nothing about the actual music, whereas Priory’s (by Hammond) set the music comprehensively in context.