IT’S a piece of music so technically demanding that only a tiny handful of organists can play it.

And Kirklees Borough Organist Gordon Stewart is one of those few virtuosos capable of playing Leo Sowerby’s Pageant.

Yesterday Dr Stewart performed the most difficult piece of organ music ever composed to an audience at Huddersfield Town Hall on the main hall’s 152-year-old organ.

The piece, written by American composer Sowerby in 1931, is 12-minutes of sheer technical hell – ironic considering it has some beautiful moments.

The tempo, keys and time signatures are varied. Indeed, the chord voicings are challenging in themselves.

But it’s the arrangement for the pedals which requires Roy Castle levels of foot agility.

And to make sure those superhuman skills weren’t wasted, two cameras kept watch of Dr Stewart’s feet, relaying his movements to a large screen in the hall.

Dr Stewart, who was awarded his doctorate at Huddersfield University, said: “We had a very large audience and they were very excited to watch every step of my feet.

“The pedal part would be difficult to play on your hands, never mind your feet.

“It’s always a challenge. You’ve to work phenomenally hard and just go for it.

“I’ve been practising it for two months every day. It uses more pedals than most organs have so I can’t practise at home.

“It’s 12 minutes long and there’s no let-up. Sometimes you’re playing four notes with your feet at the same time.

“In one section the score tells you to play as fast as possible. It was written to be a piece of virtuoso music but it’s very beautiful and you have to play it in a clear way.”

Dr Stewart, who teaches organ at Cambridge University, added: “One would never admit to coming off the organ sweating but you do feel physically tired after playing it.”

Leo Sowerby, known as the ‘Dean of American church music’, won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1946.

Pageant was written at the request of Vatican organist Fernando Germani.

Aware of Germani’s exceptional pedal technique, Sowerby wrote Pageant as a direct challenge to him.

Germani received the musical score just before boarding the boat to America and so had no time to practise it.

He solved that problem by drawing the pedal board on the base of the bath in his cabin and spending the journey sitting on the edge of the bath practising his footwork having never even heard the music played before.

Having played Pageant for the first time, Germani joked: “Now write for me something difficult!”