He was editor-in-chief of the Journal de la Vienne in Poitiers, where he met his future wife, Marie-Joséphine Gervaz.

[3] Franck recommended that he study the organ, and Vierne began lessons with Louis Lebel and Adolphe Marty.

[3] He studied harmony privately with Franck, and attended classes at the Paris Conservatoire, admitted as a full-time student in 1890.

She was born in 1880, and was a contralto singing who had worked with her father, the baritone and teacher at the Conservatoire Émile-Alexandre Taskin.

He eventually undertook a transcontinental concert tour of North America to raise money for its restoration.

[6] When Vierne's mother died on 25 March 1902, he moved to a larger flat on Rue ses Saints-Pères.

The leg was saved, but his recovery, and the task of completely re-learning his pedal technique, took a half a year.

[2] Vierne taught, as an assistant, at the Conservatoire for nineteen years, where his students included Joseph Bonnet, Nadia Boulanger, Marcel Dupré and Henri Mulet.

Among his pupils were Augustin Barié, Edward Shippen Barnes, Lili Boulanger, André Fleury, Isadore Freed, Henri Gagnebin, Gaston Litaize, Édouard Mignan, Émile Poillot, Adrien Rougier, Alexander Schreiner, and Georges-Émile Tanguay.

Vierne went to Switzerland in 1916 for glaucoma treatment, expecting to be away for only four months, with Dupré deputy organist at Notre-Dame, but due to complications, he returned four years later.

A year later, he met Madeleine Richepin, a young singer for whom he set poems by Baudelaire (Poème d'amour) which they performed in concerts together.

In 1928, they spent the summer at a castle in Angers, where he composed Les Angélus, orchestrated Poème d'amour which they premiered in Paris on 1 March 1930), and began his lyrical drama Antigone.

After the death of Vincent d'Indy and the conflicts that followed, he left the Schola cantorum for the César Franck School in 1931.

He suddenly pitched forward, and fell off the bench as his foot hit the low "E" pedal of the organ.

His harmonic language was romantically rich, but not as sentimental or theatrical as that of his early mentor César Franck.

There are also several chamber works (sonatas for violin and cello, a piano quintet and a string quartet for example), vocal and choral music, and a Symphony in A minor for orchestra.