Virgil Fox

[1] His many recordings made on the RCA Victor and Capitol labels, mostly in the 1950s and 1960s, have been remastered and re-released on compact disc in recent years.

[4] Four years later, Fox made his concert debut before an audience of 2,500 at Withrow High School in Cincinnati, Ohio.

[5] During World War II, Fox enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces and took a leave of absence from Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church in Baltimore and the Peabody.

In 1962, he also appeared with his fellow organists E. Power Biggs and Catherine Crozier to inaugurate the newly installed organ at Philharmonic Hall in New York City's Lincoln Center.

[4] In the latter category, a Fox recital at Lakeland University in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, was typical: he played Julius Reubke's monumental Sonata on the 94th Psalm, Charles Ives' Variations on "America", the "Libera Me" movement from Fauré's Requiem, Bach's Adagio and Fugue in a minor, and Henri Mulet's Thou Art the Rock, among others.

In the winter of 1975 he returned to Carnegie Hall and appeared with the American Symphony orchestra under the baton of Richard Westenburg in the Alerbert Schweitzer Centennial Concert.

[12] Several years later in 1977 he also performed in a sold-out concert featuring the music of Bach at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.[5] Fox was one of the rare organists to perform on nationally televised entertainment programs in the 1960s and 1970s, such as The Mike Douglas Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, and CBS Camera Three, bringing organ masterworks to mass audiences as no other organist had done before.

[9] In 1975, he was also interviewed by the music critic Robert Sherman on his Great Artists Series program on WQXR radio in New York City.

His style (particularly his taste for fast tempos, intricate registrations, and a willingness to luxuriate in sentimentality) was in contrast to that of many of his contemporaries, such as E. Power Biggs.

[15] Despite (or perhaps because of) his controversial approach to organ music, Virgil Fox attained a celebrity status not unlike that of Leonard Bernstein and Glenn Gould.

[5][16] The New York Times said of him, 20 years after his death, "Fox could play the pipe organ like nobody's business, but that is not all that made him unforgettable to so many people across the country.

[20] Fox died on October 25, 1980, followed by a private funeral held at Casa Lagomar conducted by his longtime assistant and adopted son, David Snyder.

[2] A large-scale public funeral service was subsequently held at the Crystal Cathedral in California, where Fox lay in state.

[21] In a sign of continued recognition unusual for a performer (as distinct from a composer), Virgil Fox memorial recitals and concerts have been staged years after his death.

[22] In May 1990, for example, a Virgil Fox Memorial Concert was given at the Crystal Cathedral organ by Frederick Swann, who was his successor at Riverside Church.

Entitled Virgil Fox: American Virtuoso, the May 3, 1992, radio program, produced almost twelve years after his death, included an excerpt of Swann's Crystal Cathedral memorial of 1990 and highlighted a virtuoso performance of Joseph Jongen's Symphonie Concertante by Fox in Tokyo, Japan, recorded fifteen years previously.

[24] Many of his recordings have been re-mastered and are widely available on compact discs, as well as regularly heard on radio programs featuring organ music, such as Pipedreams and Sacred Classics.

Virgil Fox