Mass in A major
Organ version (Coro STB) op. 12, 1860
César Franck’s great orchestral Mass in A major of 1861 is one of the works which the composer wrote for liturgical use at St. Clotilde in Paris, the church where he played for many years as a famous organist and organ improviser. Probably because of concerns on the part of his publisher, a few years after Franck composed his orchestral Mass he reworked it for much smaller forces: instead of orchestra, just organ, harp, cello, and double bass are required. It was this version of the work was first published in 1872 in Paris.
As well as the orchestral version (40.646/00), Carus-Verlag also publishes this much reduced version – both in the original, now rather unusual, choral scoring for soprano, tenor, and bass (40.646/50), and in a four-part scoring adapted for modern-day choirs (40.646/60).
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Composer
César Franck
| 1822-1890César Franck (1822–1890), a native of Liège, Belgium, studied in Paris and was active there at the Cavaillé-Coll organ of the Church of Sainte-Clotilde from 1859 until his death. In 1871 he was a co-founder of the “Société nationale de Musique”, later becoming its president. In 1872 he was appointed professor of organ at the Paris Conservatoire. His students included well-known personalities from French music history such as Ernest Chausson, Vincent d’Indy, Gabriel Pierné, Charles Tournemire, Louis Vierne and also, for a short while, Claude Debussy. In early July 1890 Franck had an accident with a horse-drawn omnibus, from the consequences of which he never recovered. He died on 8 November. Franck’s successors at Sainte-Clotilde were G. Pierné and (from 1898) Ch. Tournemire, one of Olivier Messiaen’s teachers. Personal details