By the end of the 19th century, some French organists ( e. g., Charles-Marie Widor and his students Charles Tournemire and Louis Vierne ) named some of their organ compositions symphony: Their instruments ( many built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll ) allowed an orchestral approach ( Kaye 2001 ; Smith 2001 ; Thomson 2001 ).

* 1900: Louis Vierne is appointed organist of Notre-Dame de Paris after a heavy competition ( with judges including Charles-Marie Widor ) against the 500 most talented organ players of the era.

However, in a manner befitting the Chapel's French architectural style and French-inspired organ, its speciality is perhaps the music of the great late French tradition, taking in the Masses of Louis Vierne, Maurice Duruflé, Jean Langlais, Charles-Marie Widor and Gabriel Fauré, as well as the motets of Marcel Dupré, Francis Poulenc, Pierre Villette and Olivier Messiaen.

After showing improvisation skills on the piano Messiaen studied organ with Marcel Dupré and inherited the tradition of great French organists ( Dupré had studied with Charles-Marie Widor and Louis Vierne, Vierne in turn was a pupil of César Franck ).

* Murray, Michael, French Masters of the Organ: Saint-Saëns, Franck, Widor, Vierne, Dupré, Langlais, Messiaen ( New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998 ).

From 1892, Vierne served as an assistant to the organist Charles-Marie Widor at the church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris.

He entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1904, where he studied with Louis Diémer and Lazare Lévy ( piano ), Alexandre Guilmant and Louis Vierne ( organ ), and Charles-Marie Widor ( fugue and composition ).

Recently, the temporary organ which served Londonderry Cathedral for 12 years ( whilst its predecessor was being repaired after the Troubles ) has been added to facilities at the house and is used in particular to promote the music of the French symphonic writers such as Vierne and Widor.

In particular, his Grande Pièce Symphonique, a 25 minute work, paved the way for the organ symphonies of Charles-Marie Widor, Louis Vierne, and Marcel Dupré.

Their organs have been praised by many famous organists over the last 100 years, including Guilmant, Vierne, Widor, Bonnet, Lemare, Dethier, Courboin, Bingham, and many others who inaugurated and played Casavant organs.

A particularly important form of organ composition in the Romantic era was the organ symphony, first seen in César Franck's Grand pièce symphonique and refined in the ten symphonies of Widor and the six of Louis Vierne.

In addition to organ symphonies, composers of the day wrote in other forms: Franck wrote eleven other major organ works, including the Prélude, Fugue et Variation and the Trois Chorals ; Widor wrote a Suite Latine on various plainsong tunes ; Vierne composed 24 pièces de fantaisie, of which the Carillon de Westminster is perhaps the best-known.

Schweitzer, who insisted that the score should show Bach's notation with no additional markings, wrote the commentaries for the Preludes and Fugues, and Widor those for the Sonatas and Concertos: six volumes were published in 1912 – 14.

He and Widor collaborated on a new edition of Bach's organ works, with detailed analysis of each work in three languages ( English, French, German ).

At first he regarded his new life as a renunciation of his art, and fell out of practise: but after some time he resolved to study and learn by heart the works of Bach, Mendelssohn, Widor, César Franck, and Max Reger systematically.

His repertoire includes a wide range of organ works, the emphasis being on such Classical masters as Bach, Mozart, Franck, Widor, and Messiaen.

The works ranged from Beethoven to Widor, and announcements by Colonne were included.

Inspired by the newly built Cavaillé-Coll organs, the French organist-composers César Franck, Alexandre Guilmant and Charles-Marie Widor led organ music into the symphonic realm.

* Charles-Marie Widor succeeds César Franck as organ professor at the Paris Conservatoire.

The funeral mass for Franck was held at Sainte-Clotilde, attended by a large congregation including Léo Delibes ( officially representing the Conservatoire ), Saint-Saëns, Eugène Gigout, Gabriel Fauré, Alexandre Guilmant, Charles-Marie Widor ( who succeeded Franck as professor of organ at the Conservatoire ), and Édouard Lalo.

Some of the most well-known exponents of such organ compositions include Johann Sebastian Bach, Dieterich Buxtehude, George Frideric Handel, François Couperin, César Franck and Charles-Marie Widor to name a few.

César Franck, Charles-Marie Widor, and Félix-Alexandre Guilmant were important organist-composers who were inspired by the sounds made possible through Cavaillé-Coll's advances in organ building.

He studied organ with Guilmant and Widor.

Unlike the symphonies of Charles-Marie Widor, which are usually heard in secular recitals, L ' Orgue Mystique was designed for church use.

These included Franz Liszt, with whom he played arrangements of two of Liszt's symphonic poems ( Les Préludes, and Tasso, Lamento e Trionfo ) for 2 pianos, Hector Berlioz, Gioachino Rossini, Charles Gounod, Felix Mendelssohn, Sigismond Thalberg and Charles-Marie Widor.

In 1893 he played for the French organist Charles-Marie Widor ( at Saint-Sulpice, Paris ), for whom Johann Sebastian Bach's organ-music contained a mystic sense of the eternal.

Widor, deeply impressed, agreed to teach Schweitzer without fee, and a great and influential friendship was begun.

In 1898 he went back to Paris to write a PhD dissertation on The Religious Philosophy of Kant at the Sorbonne, and to study in earnest with Widor.

In 1899 he astonished Widor by explaining figures and motifs in Bach's Chorale Preludes as painter-like tonal and rhythmic imagery illustrating themes from the words of the hymns on which they were based.

( Widor had not grown up with knowledge of the old Lutheran hymns.

The exposition of these ideas, encouraged by Widor and Munch, became Schweitzer's next task, and appeared in the masterly study J. S. Bach: Le Musicien-Poète, written in French and published in 1905.

In 1905 Widor and Schweitzer were among the six musicians who founded the Paris Bach Society, a choir dedicated to performing J. S.

* 1844 – Charles-Marie Widor, French composer ( d. 1937 )

* March 12 – Charles-Marie Widor, French organist and composer ( b. 1840 )

* February 21 – Charles-Marie Widor, French organist and composer ( d. 1937 )

" Widor, Charles-Marie (- Jean-Albert )", 2.

When Charles-Marie Widor retired as professor of composition at the Paris Conservatoire in 1927, Dukas was appointed in his place.

He studied composition under Charles Widor and harmony and counterpoint with André Gedalge.

Born Oscar-Arthur Honegger ( the first name was never used ) in Le Havre, France, he initially studied harmony and violin in Paris, and after a brief period in Zurich, returned there to study with Charles-Marie Widor and Vincent d ' Indy.

Messiaen entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 11 and was taught by Paul Dukas, Maurice Emmanuel, Charles-Marie Widor and Marcel Dupré, among others.

After a year studying composition with Charles-Marie Widor, in the autumn of 1927 he entered the class of the newly appointed Paul Dukas, who instilled in Messiaen a mastery of orchestration.

The post became vacant in 1931 when Quef died, and Dupré, Charles Tournemire and Widor among others supported Messiaen's candidacy.