Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy ( 3 February 1809 4 November 1847), born, and generally known in

English-speaking countries, as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the
early Romantic period.F. M. was born into a prominent Jewish family, although initially he was raised without
religion and was later baptised as a Lutheran Christian. Mendelssohn was recognised early as a musical prodigy, but
his parents were cautious and did not seek to capitalise on his talent.
Early success in Germany, where he also revived interest in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, was
followed by travel throughout Europe. Mendelssohn was particularly well received in Britain as a composer,
conductor and soloist, and his ten visits there during which many of his major works were premiered form an
important part of his adult career. His essentially conservative musical tastes, however, set him apart from many of
his more adventurous musical contemporaries such as Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner and Hector Berlioz. The Leipzig
Conservatoire (now the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig), which he founded, became a bastion of this anti-
radical outlook. He is now among the most popular composers of the Romantic era.

August Gottfried Ritter (25 August 1811 26 August 1885) was a German romantic composer and organist.
Co-creator, together with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, of the first example of Romantic Organ Sonata (the first one
was composed in 1845); he moved in 1847 from being organist in Merseburg cathedral to become organist in
Magdeburg cathedral. In his critical writings, Ritter condemned the Renaissance organ composers referred to as the
"Colorists" for overindulging in ornamentation.

Franz Liszt (October 22, 1811 July 31, 1886) was a 19th-century Hungarian[3][4][5] composer, pianist, conductor
and teacher.
Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was
said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age, and in the 1840s he was
considered by some to be perhaps the greatest pianist of all time.
Liszt was also a well-known and influential composer, piano teacher and conductor. He was a benefactor to
other composers, including Richard Wagner, Camille Saint-Sans.
Liszt wrote his two largest organ works between 1850 and 1855 while he was living in Weimar, a city with a
long tradition of organ music, most notably that of J.S. Bach. Humphrey Searle calls these works Ad nos, ad
salutarem undam and the Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H Liszt's "only important original organ works",[49] and
Derek Watson, writing in his 1989 Liszt, considered them among the most significant organ works of the nineteenth
century, heralding the work of such key organist-musicians as Reger, Franck, and Saint-Saens, among others.[50] Ad
nos is an extended fantasia, Adagio, and fugue, lasting over half an hour, and the Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H
includes chromatic writing which sometimes removes the sense of tonality. Liszt also wrote some smaller organ
works, including a prelude (1854) and set of variations on the first section of movement 2 chorus from Bach's
cantata Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen, BWV 12 (which Bach later reworked as the Crucifixus in the Mass in B
minor), which he composed after the death of his daughter in 1862.[28] He also wrote a Requiem for organ solo,
intended to be performed liturgically, along with the spoken Requiem Mass.[49]

Wilhelm Richard Wagner (22 May 1813 13 February 1883) was a German composer. The conductor of this
premiere was Hans von Blow, whose wife, Cosima, had given birth in April that year to a daughter, named Isolde, a
child not of Blow but of Wagner.
Cosima was 24 years younger than Wagner and was herself illegitimate, the daughter of the Countess Marie
d'Agoult, who had left her husband for Franz Liszt.[91] Liszt initially disapproved of his daughter's involvement with
Wagner, though nevertheless the two men were friends.[

Louis James Alfred Lefbure-Wly (13 November 1817 31 December 1869) was a French organist and composer.
He played a major role in the development of the French symphonic organ style and was closely associated with the
organ builder Aristide Cavaill-Coll, inaugurating many new Cavaill-Coll organs.
His playing was virtuosic, and as a performer he was rated above eminent contemporaries including Csar
Franck. His compositions, less substantial than those of Franck and others, have not held such a prominent place in
the repertory.
http://imslp.org/wiki/Meditaciones_religiosas,_Op.122_%28Lef%C3%A9bure-W%C3%A9ly,_Louis_James_Alfred%29


Csar Franck
Csar-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck (10 December 1822 8 November 1890) was a composer,
pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life.
He was born at Lige, in what is now Belgium (though at the time of his birth it was under the Netherlands'
control). In that city he gave his first concerts in 1834. He studied privately in Paris from 1835, where his teachers
included Anton Reicha. After a brief return to Belgium, and a disastrous reception to an early oratorio Ruth, he
moved to Paris, where he married and embarked on a career as teacher and organist. He gained a reputation as a
formidable improviser, and travelled widely in France to demonstrate new instruments built by Aristide Cavaill-Coll.
In 1858 he became organist at Sainte-Clotilde, a position he retained for the rest of his life. He became
professor at the Paris Conservatoire in 1872; he took French nationality, a requirement of the appointment. His
pupils included Vincent d'Indy, Ernest Chausson, Louis Vierne, Charles Tournemire, Guillaume Lekeu, and Henri
Duparc. After acquiring the professorship Franck wrote several pieces that have entered the standard classical
repertoire, including symphonic, chamber, and keyboard works.

Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens (3 January 1823 30 January 1881), was an organist and composer for his instrument.
Born at Zoerle-Parwijs, near Westerlo, Belgium, Lemmens took lessons from Franois-Joseph Ftis, who
wanted to make him into a musician capable of renewing the organ-player's art in Belgium. Ftis sent him to Adolf
Friedrich Hesse in Germany to learn Johann Sebastian Bach's tradition.
In 1847, Lemmens won the Paris Conservatoire's prestigious Prix de Rome with his Le roi Lear ("King Lear").
One year later he published his first work for organ: Dix improvisations dans le style svre et chantant ("Ten
improvisations in a strict and singing style"). In March 1849 he was appointed organ teacher at the Royal Brussels
Conservatoire, aged only 26; and he trained numerous young musicians, including two eminent Frenchmen,
Alexandre Guilmant and Charles-Marie Widor.
During 1852 he gave organ recitals in Saint Vincent de Paul, La Madeleine and Saint Eustache churches in
Paris, where he stunned audiences with his technique. Particularly notable was his brilliant pedal-playing, which
owed a good deal to his studies of Bach's music (at the time Bach's organ works were not at all well known in
France).
cole d'Orgue, base sur le plain-chant romain (Orgelschule, 1862), incl.:
Prlude 5 (Grave) in E-flat major
Prire (Moderato cantabile) in E major
Fanfare (Allegro non troppo) in D major
Cantabile (Allegretto) in B minor
Final (Allegro) in D major

Johannes Brahms (7 May 1833 3 April 1897) was a German composer and pianist.
Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where
he was a leader of the musical scene. In his lifetime, Brahms's popularity and influence were considerable; following
a comment by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Blow, he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian
Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the "Three Bs".
His chorale preludes for organ, Op. 122, which he wrote shortly before his death, have become an important part of
the organ repertoire.

Charles-Camille Saint-Sans ( 9 October 1835 16 December 1921) was a French composer, organist, conductor,
and pianist of the Romantic era. For income, Saint-Sans played the organ at various churches in Paris, with his first
appointment being at the Saint-Merri in the Beaubourg area.[1] In 1857, he replaced Lefbure-Wely at the eminent
position of organist at the glise de la Madeleine, which he kept until 1877. His weekly improvisations stunned the
Parisian public and earned Liszt's 1866 observation that Saint-Sans was the greatest organist in the world. He also
composed a famous piece called Danse Macabre at this time.

Franois-Clment Thodore Dubois (24 August 1837 11 June 1924) was a French composer, organist and music
teacher.
Douze Pices pour orgue ou piano-pdalier (1889), including the famous Toccata in G (no. 3)
Douze Pices Nouvelles pour orgue ou piano-pdalier (1893), including In Paradisum (no. 9)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKwQTvj1h8w

Eugne Gigout (23 March 1844 9 December 1925) was a French organist and a composer, mostly of music for his
own instrument.
Gigout was born in Nancy, and died in Paris. A pupil of Camille Saint-Sans, he served as the organist of the
French capital's Saint-Augustin Church for 62 years. He became widely known as a teacher and his output as a
composer was considerable. Renowned as an expert improviser, he also founded his own music school. His nephew
by marriage was Lon Bollmann, another distinguished French composer and organist.

Charles-Marie Jean Albert Widor (21 February 1844 12 March 1937) was a French organist, composer and teacher.
Toccata from the Organ Symphony no.5
Symphonie Ghotique no.9
He was succeeded in 1934 by his former student and assistant, Marcel Dupr.

Lon Bollmann (September 25, 1862 October 11, 1897) was a French composer .
In 1871, at the age of nine, he entered the cole de Musique Classique et Religieuse (L'cole Niedermeyer) in
Paris, where he studied with its director, Gustave Lefvre, and with Eugne Gigout. Bollmann there won first prizes
in piano, organ, counterpoint, fugue, plainsong, and composition.[1] After his graduation in 1881, Bollmann was
hired as sub-organist at the Church of St. Vincent de Paul[2] in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, and six years later
he became cantor and "organiste titulaire," a position he held until his early death, probably from tuberculosis.
In 1885, Bollmann married Louise, the daughter of Gustave Lefvre and the niece of Eugne Gigout, into
whose house the couple moved. (Having no children of his own, Gigout adopted Bollmann.) Bollmann then taught
in Gigout's school of organ playing and improvisation.
As a favored student of Gigout, Bollmann moved in the best circles of the French musical world, and as a
pleasing personality, he made friends of many artists and was able to give concerts both in Paris and the
provinces.[3] Bollmann became known as "a dedicated teacher, trenchant critic, gifted composer and successful
performer...who coaxed pleasing sounds out of recalcitrant instruments." Bollmann also wrote musical criticism for
L'art musical under the pseudonym "le Rvrend Pre Lon" and "un Garon de la salle Pleyel."[4]
Bollmann died in 1897, aged only 35. After the death of his wife the following year, Gigout reared their
three orphans, one of whom, Marie-Louise Bollmann-Gigout (18911977), became a noted organ teacher in her
own right.

Louis Victor Jules Vierne (8 October 1870 2 June 1937) was a French organist and composer
After completing school in the provinces, Louis Vierne entered the Paris Conservatory. From 1892, Vierne served as
an assistant to the organist Charles-Marie Widor at the church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris. Vierne subsequently became
principal organist at the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, a post he held from 1900 until his death in 1937.
Carillon de Westminster
Maurice Durufl, another major French organist and composer of the time was at his side at the time of his death.

Marcel Dupr (3 May 1886 30 May 1971), was a French organist, pianist, composer, and pedagogue.

Maurice Durufl (11 January 1902 16 June 1986) was a French composer, organist, and pedagogue.

Jean Langlais (15 February 1907 8 May 1991) was a French composer of modern classical music, organist, and
improviser.

Olivier Messiaen (December 10, 1908 April 27, 1992) was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of
the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex (he was interested in rhythms from
ancient Greek and from Hindu sources); harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition,
which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations. Messiaen also drew on his deeply held Roman
Catholicism.

William Southcombe Lloyd Webber (11 March 1914 29 October 1982) was an English organist and composer.