ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role of the Victorian organist-composers when viewed in line with the aesthetic influences of their era. The central question asks why so many composers chose to write sonatas from the mid-nineteenth century onwards in a style of an earlier era. This lineage is then developed in the latter part of the century with the influences that emanated from the Leipzig Conservatorium and the adulation of Mendelssohn towards the culminating English Romantic organ work, Elgar's Sonata of 1895. The two prevailing genres of the English nineteenth century, the sonata and the fugue, were central to the classical symphonies and the latter occurring as the last movement in the overwhelming number of English sonatas. Organists were also amongst the few full-time musicians in English musical culture, although they did not enjoy the universal respect of society. The question of worthiness through industrious effort was a primary concern of the Victorians.
