GIVEN that its organ is currently away, undergoing restoration, casual visitors to Gloucester Cathedral might be surprised to hear what they think is the organ being played. Built in 1666 with 3600 pipes, it is the only complete 17th-century case in the country, and it is recognised as one of the most prestigious instruments of its kind.

But what visitors are actually hearing is the organist playing a 25-year-old Allen console connected to a computer, using software that samples every single pipe on an organ along with the sounds that the organ makes mechanically. The result is a virtual version of that instrument. Gloucester is using the Hereford Cathedral sample set, one of the first to be made.

“Because it’s sampled sound, it’s a lot more realistic than digital organs of 15 or 20 years ago,” the assistant director of music, Jonathan Hope, said this week. “If you’ve got the right amount of speakers with the right amount of power behind them, you can make the organ ring around the cathedral in the short term.

“Brilliant though the technology is, it can’t be the same physically — in terms of the air moving around — that the pipe organ gives. But it’s as close as you can get in the mean time.”

Work with Nicholson & Co. Ltd is, the cathedral reports, progressing well on the restoration, and is central to the cathedral’s £3-million In Tune campaign, a musical outreach project including the setting up of a singing and organ academy. The money will also help to fund an organ scholarship. The campaign was boosted recently by a £1-million donation from the Julia Rausing Trust.

The organ, last rebuilt in the 1970s, was now intended to be a liturgical instrument, a concert instrument, and an instrument to “inspire a future generation of musicians”, Mr Hope said. “It needs to be able to accompany both the smallest chorister singing a 17th-century verse anthem and a congregation of 1000 ‘giving it large’ at Christmas.”

The new instrument will be back in operation in time for the 2026 Three Choirs Festival and other celebrations planned for next year.