Perhaps the greatest piece of music ever written by a Belgian, this symphony is notable both for its gorgeous, ebullient melodies and for its colourful orchestral colours, unusually for the time including cor anglais, bass clarinet, cornets as well as trumpets, and a harp (or perhaps two, see section 3 below). Indeed, when it was first performed at the Paris Conservatoire on 17 February 1889, a curmudgeonly critic – apparently unfamiliar with the music of Berlioz – wrote that it was certainly no symphony since it made use of a cor anglais. More to the point, perhaps, Franck moulds together his disparate orchestral palette to resemble his favourite instrument, the organ; yet in the process not at all subliminating the individual colours to the mass, as in the symphonies of Bruckner, but allowing each instrument to shine most rewardingly. In several of these respects, its clear antecedent was Saint-Saëns's (also cyclic) Organ Symphony.

sources

X  Autograph Particell sketch (1887)

(A  Autograph (1888), carefully preserved by its dedicatee Duparc throughout his life, but then sadly destroyed in a fire in 1935)

V  Transcription by the composer for piano duet, published by Hamelle in 1889/90

E,P  First edition score and parts, published by Hamelle in 1890; neither E nor P has bar numbers, but they are so useful that they are given in the present report in addition to the usual rehearsal letters

Ub  Urtext edition, edited by Peter Jost, published 1999 by Breitkopf & Härtel. Most of E's obvious mistakes are corrected, but Ub fails to take any account of P, thus ignoring some important authentic readings, e.g. dynamics in I 231 WW, III 394 Brass

For this piece the additional abbreviation Cap (= Cornet a pistons) is necessary.