By 2024 Hansjörg Albrecht plans to have finished recording the first complete set of Bruckner’s 10 symphonies in organ arrangements, in time for the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth. This latest instalment, the sixth to be recorded, features the Klais organ of St Margaret’s Church in Munich, a generously appointed three-manual instrument, originally built by Nenninger and Moser in 1915. Although he left no major organ works, Bruckner was renowned as a recitalist in France and London, where he gave six recitals on the then new ‘Father’ Willis organ in the Royal Albert Hall. It seems that his daily organ improvisations helped him to develop symphonic themes.

The Fifth Symphony has already been transcribed and recorded by Matthias Giesen on Bruckner’s own organ at St Florian in Austria. His version is one of the slowest on record, some eight minutes longer than that of Albrecht, who uses Erwin Horn’s transcription, based on the 1873 78 version of the symphony. At 76 minutes’ duration this is at the longer end of the spectrum, especially when compared, say, to Karajan’s sprightly 71 minutes. The main factor is the church’s cavernous acoustic, which elongates Bruckner’s own ‘in-built’ longueurs and pauses. Albrecht does his best to maintain the momentum of the first movement but allows things to drag a little in the long-winded second. He does ensure, though, that contrapuntal details are always crystal-clear.

In the Scherzo he takes full advantage of the reverberation for dramatic effects and the cumulative finale grows beautifully, growing to tie together much of the foregoing material. Rather than slavishly attempting to choose organ colours that mimic the orchestral originals, Albrecht has sought out some lovely Romantic stop combinations. ‘Pizzicato’ pedal notes come over quite effectively. It also helps that Bruckner’s score only required timpani, rather than anything more percussively exotic. As a bonus track, available online, Françoise Choveaux’s Poème is, by contrast, a thing of exquisite beauty and well worth exploring independently from the symphony.

Even if organ transcriptions are anathema, one cannot fault the polished and persuasive musicianship on display here, aided by first-class engineering and presentation.