a revival of interest in France in choral music of the baroque and earlier periods, particularly of Palestrina, Bach and Handel: Alexandre-Étienne Choron founded the Institution royale de musique classique et religieuse in 1817. After the July Revolution and Choron's death in 1834, direction of the institute, renamed the "Conservatoire royal de musique classique de France", was taken over by Louis Niedermeyer and took his name as the . Along with the Conservatoire de Paris, it became one of the main training grounds for French organists. The Belgian composer and musicologist François-Joseph Fétis, a contemporary and colleague of Choron in Paris, shared his interest in early and baroque music. Fétis exerted a similar influence in Brussels, where he was appointed director of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels in 1832, a position he held until his death in 1871. At the same time, French organ builders most notably Aristide Cavaillé-Coll were starting to produce new series of organs, which with their pedalboards, were designed both for the music of Bach as well as modern symphonic compositions. The change in traditions can be traced back to the inauguration in 1844 of the organ for St Eustache, built by Doublaine and Callinet. The German organ virtuoso Adolf Friedrich Hesse was invited with five Parisians to demonstrate the new instrument. As part of his recital Hesse played Bach's Toccata in F major, BWV 540/1, allowing the Parisian audience to hear pedal technique far beyond what was known in France at that time. While impressed by his pedal playing, French commentators at the time gave Hesse mixed praise, one remarking that, while he might be the "king of the pedal ... he thinks of nothing but power and noise, his playing astonishes, but does not speak to the soul. He always seems to be the minister of an angry God who wants to punish." Another commentator, however, who had heard Hesse playing Bach on the organ at an industrial exhibition beforehand, noted that "if the organ of the Doublaine-Callinet firm is perfect from bottom to top, Monsieur Hesse is a complete organist from head to feet." The new organ had a short life: it was destroyed by fire from a falling candle in December 1844. Two Belgian organist-composers, Franck and Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens, participated in the inauguration in 1854 of the new organ at St Eustache. Lemmens had studied with Hesse and Fétis; already in the