Lionel Rogg

Who is Lionel Rogg?

Lionel Rogg is a Swiss organist, composer and teacher of musical theory. Among many other distinctions, he has recorded the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach three times.

Rogg showed exceptional musical gifts at an early age. At 15 he took charge of the Geneva St Boniface organ, and later, at the Conservatory of Geneva, he studied under Pierre Segond. He obtained degrees in harmony, counterpoint and fugue, and won scholarships, organ and piano prizes, and a First Prize for sight-reading. In 1959 he won second prize for organ at the International Music Competition of Munich. He also studied with Nikita Magaloff.

After three years of intensive study, in 1961 he gave a series of ten recitals of the complete organ works of J S Bach at the Victoria Hall, Geneva. These recitals were very enthusiastically received, and were followed by organ recitals in France, Spain, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, and in England at St Albans and at the Royal Festival Hall in London. He gave two recitals devoted to Bach's 'Orgelbüchlein' at the 1962 International Festival of Montreux, and participated in Festivals and organ weeks at Bayreuth and Nuremberg.