I read in three reference sources – none written in the last 40 years – that Fiori musicali (‘Musical Flowers’) is Frescobaldi’s most famous publication, though my impression is that it’s his sparky harpsichord toccatas, capriccios and partitas that attract more interest these days. But no matter. If, next to those, these organ pieces might sound a little sober and unvarying to modern ears, time patiently spent with them is well used, as Bach knew; he had a copy in his library. For Frescobaldi was a master of clever but smoothly made counterpoint, and a harmonic adventurer too; put these fiori on as background, and you’ll soon find them snaking out tendrils for your attention.

Published in 1635, the book contains the kinds of little pieces that organists make up during Mass to lead from one part to another, fill an awkward gap or inspire devotion. Frescobaldi himself would have done this as organist of St Peter’s in Rome, no less, but here he offers a hand to less gifted improvisers in three Masses’ worth of material with titles such as Toccata avanti la Messa, Kyrie, Canzon dopo l’Epistola and so on. There is not room on the CD for every one of Frescobaldi’s 26 Gregorian-based Kyries, nor for two of the Recercars (though one of them is offered on YouTube), but since Richard Lester plays the Masses as suites with no further liturgical context than a few plainchant alternations in the Kyries, they may be better appreciated in smaller batches anyway.

The most inspired music undoubtedly lies in the mystically atmosphered pieces to accompany the Elevation – those of the first and third Masses are played here with eerie tremulant – but there is character, too, in briskly dancing canzonas, imposing toccatas, some queasy chromaticism (for instance in the Recercar dopo il Credo of the first Mass), and in the two capriccios on secular tunes that he adds at the end of the collection (no one knows quite why), and which change the tone somewhat. Not that he forgets his contrapuntal cunning in these last; the Bergamasca is built on four short motifs taken from just four bars of the melody and its bass.

Lester plays on the dark but kindly 1983 William Drake organ at St John’s, Totnes. He maintains a serious manner throughout, perhaps at a cost in brightness and attack, and the four chanting male voices of The Greenwood Consort sound suitably devout and self-effacing. If you want more organistic oomph and brilliance, Rinaldo Alessandrini on an Italian organ should fit the bill (Auvidis, 1/91), but Lester serves the collection’s dignity well enough.