Don’t be put off by this album’s subtitle, ‘Contemporary Organ Music’. Although there are some ‘tough’ patches, these five pieces offer sufficient variety and vibrancy of colour to warrant further investigation.

Barry Jordan’s Praise Song (given here in its 2018 revised version) was partly inspired by African drumming rhythms. The spirited moto perpetuo in the final minutes is played with superb balance and intensity. Theo Brandmüller’s Sternenklänge (2008) starts with a great sense of space and mystery. It would make an ideal soundtrack to a planetarium. The earliest work on the programme is Arvo Pärt’s five-movement organ Mass Annum per annum (1980). Its opening bursts in with a tremendous galloping energy only to be cut short after a couple of minutes when the air supply is shut off! The central movements are highly atmospheric and make a beautiful foil to the vivid crescendo that rounds off the piece.

Christian von Blohn’s own Dialogue vers les étoiles (2021) is intended as a posthumous musical dialogue with Brandmüller, his teacher. His fondness for the highest frequencies generated by the instrument’s tiniest pipes will tax some listeners’ auditory ranges, while at the other end of the spectrum the lowest frequencies tend to grunt and belch somewhat. At just over 17 minutes’ duration, patience becomes stretched. The problem with this type of spasmodic, post-Messiaen repertory is that a little goes quite a long way and brings to mind the old conundrum about originality versus coherence.

Things improve dramatically, however, with Thierry Escaich’s Evocation II of 1996, a six-minute tour de force underpinned (mostly) by a sustained pedal point. Saturated with a strong harmonic palette, there are tangible traces of Jehan Alain and of a stretching and striving towards some sort of ultimate goal. This is the highlight of the album.

Magdeburg Cathedral’s vast four-manual organ (by Schuke in 2008 and comprising 92 stops) is the perfect instrument for this challenging repertory. Blohn displays complete technical mastery and is a wholehearted advocate. With a playing time of just under an hour, this is probably enough for a bout of concentrated listening.