ABSTRACT
The influence of Willis's innovations on the art of the autodidactic William Thomas Best cannot be underestimated. The publicity of the Great Exhibition organ led to an even more providential interaction with Best when the prospect of the new organ at St George's Hall, Liverpool, was mooted. The Organ was very much conceived as an apprenticeship and in many ways its mission, professional in demeanour, was to reach out to a broad population, especially to the keen amateur church organist who was unlikely to reach the levels outlined by the more advanced examples in Best's treatise. Novello publishes the john stainer's The Organ in a popular series of musically-orientated educational primers. John Stainer, like Best, was a child of the 'Willis era', and his reputation as an organist might have risen further had he accepted the position as Professor of Organ at the new Royal College of Music.
