Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini (7 October 1929 in Bologna – 11 July 2017 in Bologna), was an Italian organist, harpsichordist, musicologist and composer. Biography Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini studied organ, piano and composition with Riccardo Nielsen at the Conservatorio Giovanni Battista Martini in Bologna and at the Conservatory in Paris with Marcel Dupré. He graduated at the University of Padua in 1951 with a dissertation on the texts of the sacred cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach; he taught organ at Bologna Conservatory where he also held the post of librarian; he became lecturer and later professor of organ at the Monteverdi Conservatory in Bolzano. He was appointed to teach music history at the University of Parma and in 1971 he was appointed as Professor and as Director of the Institute of Musicology at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland). He was guest professor at various universities in the U.S.A.; he was widely active as a concert organist in Italy and abroad. Together with Liuwe Tamminga he was appointed as organist at the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna. Together with Renato Lunelli he founded the journal "L'Organo" in 1960, continued together with Oscar Mischiati and still running today. He taught regularly at the summer courses at Haarlem, Netherlands and at the course the "Academy of Organ Music" at Pistoia. Together with Marie-Claire Alain, Anton Heiller and Gustav Leonhardt, he made a considerable contribution to the rediscovery and promotion of historical performance practice on the Baroque organ and also the harpsichord. Together with his good friend and colleague Oscar Mischiati he is seen to have been the first promoter of the historical organ movement in Italy. This movement was and is concerned with the restoration of historical organs using old methods and techniques, reestablishing the original value of the instruments and enabling them to be appreciated. Some of the restorations guided by the movement, in particular those of the two organs in the Basilica San Petronio in Bologna, one (1471–75) by Lorenzo da Prato and (1531) Giovan Battista Fachinetti, and the other (1596) by Baldassarre Malamini, have contributed to a new awareness of historical organs in Italy and a new consciousness of their extraordinary value. Among the most successful concert organists of his generation, he not only performed on the most important organs in Italy but also those elsewhere in Europe. He made a number of recordings and received several awards including the "Premio