ABSTRACT
Critic Harvey Grace is a composer who writes organist in an assessment of modern English organ music published in The Rotunda in the mid-1920s. Written around half way through the period in question, his remarks provide helpful orientation. Grace's respect for César Franck and Josef Rheinberger as international lodestars is clear-cut, as is his appreciation of Sigfrid Karg-Elert, a living German organist-composer whose advanced idiom had, by the 1920s, secured the interest of a number of English organists. For the composer, the sonata was indicative of a move to public display of ability and achievement, a desire for legacy and professional acceptance amongst colleagues, and it could also purvey a didactic tone. For the composer, there was a validation of their work by a publisher and the strengthening of relationships with colleagues. French composers for the organ, Parratt opined, had created some beautiful effects and some enduring work.
