In recent times, in Perth at any rate, one has become more accustomed to seeing Dr Joseph Nolan in front of an orchestra or choir than seated before an organ console.

It was therefore a rare and very welcome treat to hear this brilliant, internationally acclaimed organist on the mighty West Organ of St George’s Cathedral in this sold-out Thursday night recital featuring music by Bach, Liszt and Widor.

Nolan opened the concert with JS Bach’s much-transcribed Chaconne from the Partita No. 2 in D minor for solo violin, in an arrangement for organ by Henri Messerer.

The Sir Francis Burt Memorial Concert, 2023. Photo © Russell BartonDespite Messerer’s tasteful deployment of the organ’s vast resources in realising the orchestral potential of Bach’s original, it fails to capture its soul. Give me Busoni’s piano version any day. Not even Nolan’s singular artistry can convince me otherwise.

Franz Liszt’s Fantasy and Fugue on the chorale Ad nos, ad salutarem, his first work for organ (1850), is...