This weekend's Proms feature a Sunday morning recital by French organist Olivier Latry on the Royal Albert Hall's Willis organ, an event that Guardian critic Tom Service uses to make the case for the pipe organ as a far more versatile and exciting instrument than its stuffy reputation suggests. He argues that a new generation of players, from Latry to Anna Lapwood, alongside experimental composer-organists such as Jonny Greenwood and Kali Malone, are pushing the instrument beyond its traditional cathedral repertoire and winning over sceptical audiences.

The Royal Albert Hall's organ has 9,999 pipes, stands 21 metres tall and is 155 years old, with the hall itself built to resonate around it; the world's largest working organ, in Philadelphia's Wanamaker's department store, has 28,762 pipes across seven storeys. The article also highlights extreme examples of the instrument's scope, including John Cage's Organ²/ASLSP, a performance in Halberstadt, Germany, begun in 2001 and not due to finish until 2640, and Jonny Greenwood's eight-hour piece X Years of Reverb, next being performed at Manchester Cathedral in January.