Good evening, Mayor, and thank you for today’s sustenance for body and soul.
Have you had trick-or-treaters tonight?
Cesar Franck was topped in his writing for organ only by Bach. He led the French organ movement from his perch at the organ of the Church of Ste-Clothide in the Paris suburbs, and his pieces work best on organs built by Cavaille-Coll, the great French organ house.
Don’t listen to this piece in a dark room! It’s an improvisational work that uses three sharps only as a key signature of convenience. Franck is all over the place and often dispenses with the concept of key entirely. You have a sense of floating and being unmoored from tonality. He spends much of his time in A minor and even ends it there. It’s a great piece to accompany a silent horror movie.
This is Vincent Dubois at the manuals and pedals of the organ of the Soissons Cathedral.
We had a few, not many but it was cold and rainy.