Pierre Cochereau it can be said, restored Notre-Dame to its rightful place as the undisputed ‘grand fromage’ of French church music following years in the doldrums after the death of Louis Vierne in 1937. His penchant for gothic gesture evocative and always a perfect fit for Notre-Dame’s instrument and acoustic and his reconciling of the French romantic organ sound with the pillars of Bach’s organ repertory distinguished him as ‘a phenomenon without equal in the history of the contemporary organ’ as his teacher Marcel Dupré was to remark. It is doubtless as an improvisor that Cochereau’s musical legacy is most important where he takes the ephemeral tradition of the French organ school to its apogee. This collection spans the breadth of Cochereau’s vast repertoire and includes two discs of improvisations.