Chevalier Auguste Wiegand
(1849–1904)

Chevalier Auguste Wiegand was the first Sydney City Organist, holding the position for 10 years from 1891 to 1900.

He arrived in Sydney in June 1891 and almost immediately submitted to the Council a list of more than 200 works divided into his first 20 programmes.

The immense audiences attracted to Wiegand’s first concerts have become the stuff of legend and Wiegand’s choice of music was extremely broadly based.

While he frequently performed the music of Bach and other great classical composers, he time and again proved himself to be, at heart, a pleaser of people.

His programmes featured the evergreens of sacred, operatic and popular music, blithely mixing the Hallelujah Chorus with Rule Britannia, and excerpts from Carmen with God Save the Queen, a Bach fugue and the wildest of impromptu storm effects.