Cesar Franck

Franck was an organist at Sainte-Clotilde in Paris for over thirty years and taught organ at the Conservatoire. The organ shows in his orchestral writing: long sustained chords, sudden changes of colour that work like changing stops, and harmony that moves by half steps through remote keys without settling.

He is the clearest example of cyclic form, in which the same themes return across movements and the finale gathers them. The Symphony in D minor (1888) opens with a three-note question that comes back in every movement and is sounded again in triumph at the end. The middle movement combines what would normally be two movements, a slow movement and a scherzo, into one: a cor anglais melody over plucked strings, with the scherzo material woven through it.

The symphony is in three movements rather than four, which was criticised at the premiere along with his use of the cor anglais, an instrument some Paris critics thought had no place in a symphony. The work established the French symphonic tradition that d'Indy and others continued.