The past few years have been rewarding for collectors keen on Messiaen’s organ music, with three complete sets from Jennifer Bate (Regis, 5/02), Olivier Latry (DG, 5/02) and – the first choice – Dame Gillian Weir (Priory, 12/94R). However, only Latry’s was completely new, and the ambience of Notre Dame helped to create a very particular kind of reflectiveness and deliberation in the performances which is not to everyone’s taste in this often volatile music. One therefore welcomes the chance to hear an organist from the younger generation, playing an English instrument (Harrison and Harrison) and giving full weight to the music’s uncompromising intensity.

Timothy Byram-Wigfield’s programme highlights Messiaen’s earlier works, the main emphasis falling on the seven-movement sequence from 1939, Les corps glorieux. It’s clear from the outset that this will be a strongly delineated reading, with well managed contrasts of registration given added clarity by the superb quality of the recording. It’s a very physical sound but the vibrating beats of sustained notes are never oppressive, and the reading has a sense of direction and purpose which even manages to make a compelling experience out of the 15-minute central movement, ‘Combat de la Mort et de la Vie’.

The two shorter pieces are well contrasted, with Le banquet céleste given a satisfying build-up, and Apparition de l’église éternelle magnificently forthright and implacable. This is a highly successful disc and augurs well for Byram-Wigfield’s projected survey of Messiaen’s early organ music.