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Organ Historical Society awards John Ogasapian Book Prize to Wm. A. Little

October 19, 2011
THE DIAPASON

The Organ Historical Society has awarded Wm. A. Little the John Ogasapian Book Prize, 2010, for his book, Mendelssohn and the Organ, published by Oxford University Press.



The prize is given for the most distinguished book published related to the pipe organ, and is the only known literary prize devoted to the organ.



Dr. Little is Professor of German and Music, Emeritus at the University of Virginia. His interest in Mendelssohn began in the mid-1950s, when his teacher, George Faxon, suggested that he find the composer’s lost organ works.



In 1985, Little discovered the manuscripts in the Jagiellonian Library in Krakow, where they were shipped from the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin shortly before the outbreak of World War II. Hitherto, the manuscripts had been given up as lost and destroyed during the war.



Little’s complete edition of Mendelssohn’s organ works was published by Novello, 1987–1990; Mendelssohn and the Organ is intended as a companion volume to these works.