大象传媒

Durham Cathedral's splendid organ is widely acknowledged to be one of the country's finest. Its statistics are impressive: four manuals (controlling five manual divisions) plus pedals; 98 speaking stops and 23 couplers and accessories; and no fewer than 5,746 pipes. But of course, to turn this triumph of mechanical engineering into music it takes human fingers and feet.

James Lancelot, 30 years the Master of the Choristers and Organist at Durham Cathedral, knows the instrument better than most. He plays a thrilling programme that puts both him and the organ through their paces, beginning and ending with two peaks of the repertoire from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

One of Bach's greatest works in any medium, the majestic C minor Passacaglia is a set of brilliant and contrasting variations crowned by a magnificent final fugue. Much arranged and orchestrated in the twentieth century, you can't beat hearing it on the instrument for which it was written. Psalm 94 is a grim plea for vengeance on God's enemies and the inspiration for German organist Julius Reubke, a younger contemporary of Liszt. Reubke's Sonata is a musical illustration of the text, a tone-poem in all but name - and a virtuoso tour de force by which both organs and organists are judged.

In between comes the first of Hindemith's three organ sonatas, Kenneth Leighton's celebratory 'Paean' and Percy Whitlock's most famous and popular organ work, 'Plymouth Suite'.

Presented by Christopher Cook.

JS Bach: Passacaglia in C minor, BWV 582
Paul Hindemith: Sonata No 1
Kenneth Leighton: Paean
Percy Whitlock: Plymouth Suite
Julius Reubke: Sonata on Psalm 94

James Lancelot (organ).