César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck (1822 – 1890) was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life. He was born at Liège, in what is now Belgium (though at the time of his birth it was part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands). He gave his first concerts there in 1834 and studied privately in Paris from 1835, where his teachers included Anton Reicha. After a brief return to Belgium, and a disastrous reception to an early oratorio Ruth, he moved to Paris, where he married and embarked on a career as teacher and organist. He gained a reputation as a formidable improviser, and travelled widely in France to demonstrate new instruments built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll.

César Franck's Prélude, fugue et variations has become a popular work among organists and is familiar to music lovers even though they may not know its title or composer. Written in 1862, it is a part of the larger Six Pièces pour le Grand Orgue. After having worked as organist at the parish of Saint-Jean-Saint-François for seven years, Franck obtained the same appointment at Sainte-Clotilde, where he had been choirmaster for some time. It was at the latter church that he received his inspiration for Prélude. At his new post, he met with a monumental artistic challenge when the inventor-builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll finished construction on a three-manual grand organ for the church in 1859. For the dedication of this instrument on December 19 of the same year, Franck played his Final in B Flat Major, Op. 21. His attachment to this particular organ was so great that it inspired him to immediately compose Six Pièces pour le Grand Orgue (1860-1862), which he followed with Trois Pièces pour le Grand Orgue (1878) and Trois Chorals (1890). These works were written at the height of the Romantic organ's popularity, which stretched between 1830 and 1930. This period's most popular organists were Charles-Marie Widor, Alexandre Pierre François Boëly, Louis Lefébure-Wély and of course, Franck, who in time became known as the only true "equal" of Johann Sebastian Bach as a composer for the organ. The Prélude was dedicated to Camille Saint-Saëns. The two men had similar posts and influences, and had both studied with François Benoist at the Paris Conservatoire.

A pastoral Prélude opens the work with a seductive oboe cantilena in the upper voice. Tournemire commented on the feel of this movement when he asked, "Can you not imagine a shepherd piping the beauties of nature...?" A brief bridge of nine bars of chordal harmony leads to the freely moving austere "fugue" that is parallel to Bach's A major Fugue. A satisfying link is made between this section and "variations" over a dominant pedal. The final portion returns to the work's opening oboe cantilena; here it soars through "Mendelssohnian" counterpoint that is both flowing and refreshing, bringing the work to a quiet end. When Franck composed Prélude, fugue et variations, along with the other five works in Six Pièces pour le Grand Orgue, he not only gracefully honored the new instrument at Sainte-Clotilde, but he also added greater majesty to the repertoire of the organ.

Source: AllMusic (https://www.allmusic.com/composition/pr%C3%A9lude-fugu e-et-variations-for-organ-in-b-minor-op-18-fwv-30-mc000 2362935 ).

Although originally created for Pipe Organ, I created this Interpretation of the Prélude, Fugue et Variation (FWV 30 Opus 18) for Double-Reed Quartet (2 Oboes, English Horn & Bassoon).