Prelude

Isaac van Vleck Flagler was born in Albany on May 15, 1838 and died on March 16 1909 in Auburn, New York. He is nearly unknown today, but he was an important American organist with a fascinating career in upstate New York.

He was organist/musical lecturer for the Chautauqua Institution which was founded by Methodists in 1874 in western New York as a summer educational center. In 1896, Flagler became one of the 145 Founders of the American Guild of Organists.
In his youth, Isaac van Vleck Flagler studied at the academies in Kinderhook and in Albany. From an early age, he showed a talent for music, especially by his brilliant piano playing. In 1854, when he was 16 years old, young Isaac became the organist at the Universalist Church in Poughkeepsie. During this time, he worked for the local newspaper and studied law over a period of four years.
As with Paine, Buck, and Thayer, Flagler decided to study music in Europe. He first went to Paris to study with Édouard Batiste, organist of Saint-Eustache. Batiste was a well-known composer and, by the mid-1850s, was performing almost as frequently as his famous contemporary, Louis- J.-A. Lefébure-Wély. Batiste was an unusual French organist in that he played standard organ literature as well as his own lighter compositions. Something that Fagler continued to do.
After Paris, Flagler went to Dresden. There, he studied with Gustav Merkel who in 1858, became organist of the Kreuzkirche.
Fagler wrote a number of hymns, smaller organ works but also a Sonata and variations. He also edited a number of collections of organ music.
One other piece by Flagler is in CH - his Military March;
http://www.contrebombarde.com/concerthall/music/10246
Photos of Flagler attached.
See this article in The Tracker;
https://tinyurl.com/yc2xcvgu