As organist at St. Clothilde and professor of organ at the Paris Conservatory, Franck influenced a generation of organists and composers including d’Indy, Chausson, Duparc, and Vierne. As a composer Franck was a late achiever par excellence: his three memorable chamber works—the Piano Quintet, the Violin Sonata, and the String Quartet—were composed in the last decade of his life, and his only Symphony was completed when he was sixty-five. There is no telling what he might have achieved had he not died in 1890 at age sixty-seven.

At St. Clothilde, which boasted one of Cavallé-Coll’s finest organs, Franck naturally provided service music, but it was his after-service improvising that drew crowds and led to his Six pièces, composed between 1856 and 1864. His friend Liszt was so impressed that he declared them deserving of a “place beside the masterpieces of Bach.” Franck dedicated the third of these, Prélude, fugue et variation, composed between 1860 and 1862, to fellow organist Camille Saint-Saëns. The classically oriented Prelude and Fugue may show a kinship with his colleague’s style, though in no way represents a portrait. The tender, slightly melancholy Prelude consists of three iterations of an irregular five-measure phrase. Another short “prelude” that sounds extemporized launches the Fugue, after which the Variation presents a new version of the opening Prelude with a more active accompaniment.

—©Jane Vial Jaffe