The organist as composer was the theme of this recital, given by Thierry Escaich, organist at the church of Saint Etienne-du-Mont in Paris, and heir to a grand tradition that includes Bach, Reger, Franck and Liszt, examples of whose work he programmed alongside his own. He's also an appealing virtuoso, with a staggering technique. Organ recitals tend to divide people: although I am sometimes sceptical, I was carried away by much of this.

Escaich gave us the UK premiere of his own Evocation III, an excitable thing of penumbral pedal drones and chattering high treble figurations, based on Luther's chorale Nun Komm, Der Heiden Heiland. The contrast with the formality of Bach's prelude on the same chorale, which served as its preface, could not have been more pronounced.

Franck's epic Chorale No 2 in B Minor was flanked, meanwhile, by Reger's Chorale Prelude on Jauchz, Erd, und Himmel, Juble Hell, and Liszt's Adagio in D Flat. Reger was seemingly Dionysian before God, Liszt, in this instance, unusually staid. The Franck was vast, but also curiously sensuous and intimate.

Escaich also ranks among the great French improvisers: he opened his programme with an Overture in the Baroque Style (it sounded a bit like Handel) and closed it with a big Triptych on Themes by Liszt. The themes, given to him at the start of the recital, were the march from the Second Piano Concerto and the chorale from St Francis of Paola Walking on the Water, from which he wove a three-section fantasia that, chameleon-like, emulated both Liszt's harmonic palette and his bravura style, with cascades of sound. Utterly remarkable.