In 1889 the publisher, Enoch, commissioned Franck to
compose 100 pieces for harmonium -- a portable reed
organ patented by Debain in the early 1840s and
improved by the Alexandres, father and son, through the
mid-century. The harmonium's popularity for home music
created a demand, though thrifty French publishers,
hedging their bets, often advertised their offerings as
being "for organ or harmonium." Franck's collection,
published posthumously, is presented in this way,
though the pieces, with t...(+)
In 1889 the publisher, Enoch, commissioned Franck to
compose 100 pieces for harmonium -- a portable reed
organ patented by Debain in the early 1840s and
improved by the Alexandres, father and son, through the
mid-century. The harmonium's popularity for home music
created a demand, though thrifty French publishers,
hedging their bets, often advertised their offerings as
being "for organ or harmonium." Franck's collection,
published posthumously, is presented in this way,
though the pieces, with their open textures and absence
of pedal parts, are plainly for harmonium. In any case,
between August 16 and September 20, 1890, Franck
completed 63 pieces, of which 59 were published in the
autumn of 1891 with the misleading title L'Organiste.
Thus, they are contemporary with the Trois Chorals for
organ and, though necessarily on a smaller scale,
partake of their unflagging invention.
As Franck left it, the collection is divided into eight
suites of seven pieces each (with three numbers of an
incomplete suite outstanding), following an invariable
plan of three numbers in the major, three in the minor,
and a rhapsodic concluding movement which weaves
together the themes of the preceding. While most are
introduced by tempo and metronome indications ("Poco
allegretto. Quarter note = 63"), occasional headings --
"Offertoire," "Prière," "Communion," "Offertoire
funèbre," "Sortie" -- show that Franck intended these
pieces primarily for liturgical use. But widely
distributed selections from L'Organiste, offered as
piano albums, demonstrate that they possess charm and
interest quite independent of the nave. Indeed, Franck
seems to have been thinking of the preludes of Bach's
Well-Tempered Clavier as he composed, for their melodic
flair is complemented by a compositional
resourcefulness which lends them substance far
surpassing similar works by his friend Lefébure-Wély,
or Chaminade.
The occasional use of folk song -- "Chant Béarnais,"
"Chant de la Creuse," "Noël Angevin," and the like --
throws Franck's straightforward yet always vivacious
craft into high relief. And through them all we catch
an aural glimpse of Franck the improviser. "For César
Franck had, or rather was, the genius of improvisation,
and no other modern organist, not excepting the most
renowned executants, would bear the most distant
comparison with him in this respect," Vincent d'Indy
recalled in 1906, adding: "sometimes the master would
invite other people, friends, amateurs, or foreign
musicians, to visit him in the organ-loft. Thus it
happened that on April 3, 1866, Franz Liszt, who had
been his sole listener, left the church of
Sainte-Clotilde lost in amazement, and evoking the name
of J.S. Bach in an inevitable comparison."
PARTITION