Wilhelm Middelschulte (1863–1943) studied church music in Berlin . From 1891 onwards he worked as director of the organ department at the American Conservatory in Chicago and the Wisconsin Conservatory in  Milwaukee .<br>
As a virtuoso organist he had a formative impact in the  USA . No less a person than Ferruccio Busoni described Middelschulte as a “master of counterpoint” and the greatest contrapuntalist since Johann Sebastian Bach.<br>