Louis Vierne (1870-1937), a student of C�sar Franck and Charles-Marie Widor, was organist of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris for 37 years, until his death at the console during a recital. Widor's successor as the organ's great French symphonist - an assessment the passage of time has proved correct - Vierne's music has remained in the repertoire of organists throughout the world, never undergoing the periodic eclipses experienced by his contemporaries. Vierne's autobiography, Mes Souvenirs, originally published serially in the 1930s, is here available in a profusely illustrated, extensively annotated English translation. Rollin Smith's Louis Vierne: Organist of Notre Dame Cathedral is the first major study of the great organist of Notre-Dame and includes chapters on his American tour, recordings, contemporary reminiscences, definitive textual corrections, the organ symphonies, his death and succession, and a thematic catalogue of his organ works.

This study draws portraits of the French romantic organist-composers including Aristide Cavaille-Coll, Cesar Franck, Charles-Marie Widor, Louis Vierne, Marcel Dupre, Jean Langlais and Olivier Messiaen. The author details the lives, times, styles, and techniques of these composers.

Drawing on the accounts of those who knew Duruflé personally as well as on Frazier's own detailed research, this new biography offers a broad sketch of this modest and elusive man, widely recognized today for having created some of the greatest works in the organ repertory - and the masterful Requiem. Frazier also examines the career and contributions of Duruflé's wife, the formidable organist Marie-Madeleine Duruflé-Chevalier.

“When I think of music, I think of you and vice-versa,” John Cage told David Tudor in the summer of 1951. Looking back years later, Cage said that every work he composed in the ensuing two decades was composed for Tudor—even if it was not written for the piano, Tudor’s nominal instrument. The collaboration of Cage and Tudor reached an apex in the Solo for Piano from Cage’s Concert for Piano and Orchestra (1957–58). None of Cage’s previous works had employed more than a single type of notation. In contrast, the Solo for Piano consists of eighty-four notational types, ranging from standard line-and-staff notation to extravagant musical graphics. The notational complexity of the Solo for Piano led Tudor to write out—or realize—a performance score, from which he played at the premiere of the Concert for Piano and Orchestra in May 1958. The next spring, when Cage requested music to complement his ninety-minute lecture “Indeterminacy,” Tudor created a second realization, for which he devised a new temporal structure to implement Cage’s notations. This edition of Tudor’s second realization of the Solo for Piano presents Tudor’s performance score in the spatial-temporal layout of its proportional notation. An introductory essay discusses the early collaborations of Cage and Tudor, as well as the genesis, creative process, and performance history of the Solo for Piano. The critical commentary examines each of Tudor’s methods of realization; which notations from Cage’s score Tudor selected and why; how Tudor interpreted Cage’s often ambiguous performance instructions; how Tudor distributed the resulting sounds temporally; and the ways in which Tudor’s realization fulfills, transcends, and sometimes contravenes the instructions of Cage’s score.

Hailed by Franz Liszt as the world's greatest organist, Camille Saint-Saëns was revered by his contemporaries for his ingenious improvisations, his mastery of the art of registration, his virtuosity, and his eclectic organ compositions. Saint-Saëns's technique and style developed out of what remained of the French classic tradition that survived into 19th century use, bridged the entire career of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, and continued well into the 20th century. Rollin Smith, author of The Organ Works of César Franck, provides an insightful biographical view of Saint-Saëns as organist and composer, including detailed chapters on the construction and settings of instruments he played (the harmonium, the Aeolian organ, and the Cavaillé-Coll organs, among others). Within the eleven appendices are essays by and about Saint-Saëns; recordings of his performances; specifications of selected organs that he played; and a thematic catalogue of his works for harmonium and organ.