Wilhelm Middelschulte (1863–1943) studied church music in Berlin. From 1891 onwards, he worked as director of the organ department at the American Conservatory in Chicago and the Wisconsin Conservatory in Milwaukee. As a virtuoso organist, he had a formative impact on American organ music: even Ferruccio Busoni called him a ‘master of counterpoint’ and the greatest contrapuntal composer since J. S. Bach. The Concerto for Organ is a masterpiece of contrapuntal inversion. The thematic material of all five movements is taken from the theme of the great Organ Fugue in E minor BWV 584/2 by Johann Sebastian Bach. The “Canonic Fantasy” is in the form of a passacaglia, whose theme and contrapuntal inversions are taken from the BACH motif. The virtuoso “Perpetuum mobile” for pedal solo is one of the works which Middelschulte performed most frequently.
