Lunchime organ recitals at St Margaret’s are given by the church’s respected director of music Christopher Rathbone on the first Friday of the month.

The recitals start at 12.30pm and last for half an hour; long enough to accommodate one of the 19th Century’s great organ ‘blockbusters’. Franz Liszt’s ‘Ad nos’ Fantasia and Fugue on a theme from Meyerbeer’s opera Le Prophete, is the first of his organ compositions and one of his most monumental works - a work that grafted Liszt’s transcendental piano technique and his flair for orchestral colour onto the formal models of Bach’s organ music. But this is an utterly distinctive work in terms of its virtuoso spirit and vast scale. Deploying the full range of solo stops and combinations on the St Margaret’s instrument, Mr Rathbone was able to bathe the colours and sonorities in the spacious acoustic of this handsome Victorian church. The massive closing chorale blazing away in C major lingered in the memory long after I had left St Margaret’s.

Christopher Rathbone’s next lunchtime recital is on Friday, November 4, from 12.30pm to 1pm. Admission is free.