ABSTRACT

This chapter explores how the developments can be seen in Samuel Wesley's own playing and in his published organ music. During the course of Wesley's career more and more new organs came to include pedal boards, and they were also increasingly beginning to be added to existing instruments as part of rebuilds or enlargements. Wesley's steadily rising public profile as an organist in the first two decades of the nineteenth century went hand in hand with his advocacy for and promotion of the music of J. S. Bach, which began in the spring of 1808. On Wesley's return to health around 1824, organ music was one of the areas to which he principally turned. Although Wesley wrote some pieces for organ during the period of his breakdown and convalescence between 1817 and around 1824, none were published. Towards the end of his life, however, Wesley placed on record his high opinion of Thomas Adams as an organist and composer.