Nineteenth-century French organ music attracts an ever-increasing number of performers and devotees. The music of César Franck and other distinguished composers-Boëly, Guilmant, Widor-and the impact upon this repertoire of the organ-building achievements achievements of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, are here explored through stylistic analysis, the study of the compositional process, and the exploration of how ideas about organ technique and performance practice traditions developed and became codified. New consideration is also given to the political and cultural contexts within which Franck and other French organist-composers worked.

Contributors: Kimberley Marshall, William J. Peterson, Benjamin Van Wye, Craig Cramer, Jesse E. Eschbach, Karen Hastings-Deans, Marie-Louise Jaquet-Langlais, Daniel Roth, Edward Zimmerman, Lawrence Archbold, Rollin Smith.