The ‘Prelude, Chorale and Fugue,’ and the ‘Symphonic Variations’ may be ranked with the symphony, the violin sonata, the string quartet and the pianoforte quintet, and are no less a perfect and in some respects a complete expression of his genius than they. One finds in them the same ceaseless chromatic shiftings and involutions of harmony, the same polyphonic treatment of short phrases, the same structural unity, the same exalted and mystical spirit. In fact this spiritual quality is perhaps nowhere so gloriously expressed as in the Chorale movement for the pianoforte. As a whole the ‘Prelude, Chorale and Fugue’ is flawless in structure. There is the greatest economy in the use of musical material. The unusual scoring of the opening measures, with the melody note slightly off the beat and the harp-like ornamentation, is the scoring which characterizes the final, tremendous pages of the Fugue. The sections of the Prelude which offer contrast to this opening melody are based upon the subject which later forms the basis of the Fugue. And the magnificent theme and spirit of the following movement, the Chorale, is projected, as it were, into the whole last section of the Fugue. Never, perhaps, was a fugue more splendidly and more fully developed, nor was the force of a work ever so made to grow and to culminate in pages of such majestic and triumphant music. There is a similar use of material in the ‘Prelude, Aria, and Finale,’ but the result is not quite so flawless. The Prelude, here, in spite of the suave beauty of its chief theme, is loose and episodic in effect. And it cannot be said that the scoring for the pianoforte is distinguished or animated. The style is either massive or awkward. The most beautiful part of the whole work is perhaps the concluding section of the Aria. The earlier parts of the Aria are skillfully devised, but the scoring is rather heavy and seems more suited to the organ than to the piano. But the melody of this concluding section is of inspired beauty; and as if Franck himself were well aware of its rare and significant worth, the last pages of the stormy Finale bring it back, woven with the chief theme of the Prelude.