Choral No. 1 in E major, FWV 38

The first of Franck's three organ Chorals, composed in the final weeks of his life in 1890. Cast in a modified chorale-variation form, it opens with a rhapsodic fantasia before the serene chorale theme emerges. The work's harmonic language — chromatic, restlessly modulating — distills a lifetime of organ improvisation into a monument of Romantic organ repertoire.