The organ's suitability for improvisation by a single performer is well adapted to this liturgical role and has allowed many blind organists to achieve fame; it also accounts for the relatively late emergence of written compositions for the instrument in the Renaissance.
The organ is specified in Marco Antonio Cavazzoni's Recerchari, motetti, canzoni [...] libro primo, printed in Venice in 1523.
The North German Praeludium (an important form consisting of alternating sections of free material written in the largely misunderstood stylus phantasticus and fugal material) reached its zenith in Dieterich Buxtehude, informed by Matthias Weckmann and Heinrich Scheidemann (influenced most strongly by Jan Peeterszoon Sweelinck and by the Italian school transported to North Germany by Heinrich Schütz and Samuel Scheidt).
During the Romantic era, technological advances allowed new features to be added to the organ, increasing its potential for expression.
He adjusted pipemaking and voicing (final regulation of the pitch and tone) techniques, thus creating a whole family of stops imitating orchestral instruments such as the bassoon, the oboe, and the flute.
For a mechanical tracker action to operate under these higher wind pressures, pneumatic assistance provided by the Barker lever was required, which Cavaillé-Coll included in his larger instruments.
This pneumatic assist made it possible to couple all the manuals together and play on the full organ without expending a great deal of effort.
César Franck, Charles-Marie Widor, and Félix-Alexandre Guilmant were important organist-composers who were inspired by the sounds made possible through Cavaillé-Coll's advances in organ building.
Guilmant wrote several compositions similar to organ symphonies; however, preferring to remain in the classical mold, he called them sonatas.
Josef Rheinberger wrote 20 sonatas for the organ and numerous smaller works, all of which blend the romantic style with the contrapuntal complexity of the old German masters.
During the mid-19th century, composers such as Franz Liszt and Julius Reubke wrote works for the organ of immense scale.
The entire 30-minute work is based on a single theme by Giacomo Meyerbeer and it shows the influence of Liszt's Sonata in B minor for piano.
Organ music in Germany at the end of the 19th century is dominated by the towering figure of Max Reger.
A revival of interest in Baroque forms and performance practices led to a rejection of the complexity and Romanticism of Liszt and Reger.