This was a well-attended recital with a very appreciative audience from Oxford and nearby. At a lunchtime recital at Exeter College Chapel, organist Gabriele Damiani presented Invocation and Exultation: Guilmant and his Contemporaries, a programme exploring the colour and architectural breadth of the nineteenth-century French organ tradition. Opening with the ceremonial brilliance of Théodore Salomé’s Grand Chœur in G, the recital moved through the contrapuntal clarity of Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens, the lively charm of Léon Boëllmann’s Ronde Française, and the lyrical introspection of César Franck’s Cantabile. Works by Alexandre Guilmant formed the centre and culmination of the programme, from the poised Canzona in C and reflective Invocation to the virtuosic finale of his First Sonata, bringing the recital to an energetic and symphonically conceived conclusion. The programme traced a carefully shaped journey from grandeur to lyricism and back to brilliance, highlighting the expressive range and structural ambition of the French Romantic organ repertoire.