period, which ends around 1875 with the
re-editing of the recently composed oratorio "Redemption," reveal him
still in search of power and a personal manner. No doubt a great
improvement over the works of the first period is visible. From this
time there date the seraphic "Panis angelicus," and the noble and
delicate "Prelude, fugue and variation" for harmonium and piano. But it
was only with the composition of his oratorio "Les Beatitudes,"
completed in 1879, that Franck's great period commences. The man had
finally been formed. And, in swift succession, there came from his
worktable the series of compositions, the "Prelude, chorale et fugue"
for piano, the sonata, the symphonic poem "Psyche," the symphony, the
quartet and the three chorales for organ that fully disclose his genius.
There is scarcely another example in all musical history of so long
retarded a flowering.

And it was a music almost the antithesis of Saint-Saens' that finally
disclosed itself through Franck. In it everything is felt and necessary
and expressive. It is unadorned. None of the light musical frosting that
conceals the poverty and vulgarity of so many of the other's ideas is to
be found here. The designs themselves are noble and significant. Franck
possessed a rare gift of sensing exactly what was to his purpose. He had
the artistic courage necessary to suppressing everything superfluous and
insignificant. His music says something with each note, and when it has
no more to say, is silent. He is concise and direct. The Symphony, for
instance, is an unbroken curve, an orderly progression by gentle and
scarcely perceptible stages from the darkness of an aching, gnawing
introduction into the clarity of a healthy, exuberant close. And whereas
Saint-Saens' style is over-smooth and glacial, a sort of musical
counterpart of the sculpture of a Canova or a Thorwaldsen, Franck's is
subtle, mottled, rich, full of the play of light and shadow. The
chromatic style that Wagner has developed in "Tristan" and in "Parsifal"
is built upon and further developed into a style almost characterized by
its rich and subtle and incessant modulations. Old and mixed modes make
their appearance in it. The thematic material is originally turned,
oftentimes broad and churchly and magnificent; the movement of the
Franckian themes being a distinct invention. The harmony is full and
varied and brilliant. But it is pre-eminently the seraphic sweetness of
Franck's style that di