You need to come to our joint. We sing LOUD . . . and while our music director doesn’t like to blow the congregation out of the building, he cranks it up enough to keep everybody on track. Then he blows them out of the building with the postlude . . . I didn’t know anything about the French composers to speak of until I got here, he did a Fulbright at Lyons and he’s a big fan of Vierne, Vidor, Franck, and so forth . . . but thank goodness (since I’m an ex-Episcopalian) he doesn’t neglect Byrd, Tallis, and Gibbons.
Ah, the French Organ Movement.
Franck has to stand next to Bach in his organ music. It far outranks his symphony, tone poems and (maybe) the Violin Sonata in A.
His Grand Symphonic Piece in F# minor is a masterpiece and shows just how effective he was as a composer for organ. The pedal work in the finale is mindboggling.
The Fantasie in A is not something you want to hear in a dark room. He spins a 4 bar unit out to heavenly length but spends very little time in A Major, using 3 sharps as a key of convenience while he travels elsewhere. And it's a very spooky trip, ending in A minor.