Trois Chorals

César Franck began composing the Trois Chorals in the summer of 1890 in Nemours, south of Paris. He completed the first draft of Choral III on September 30 and died on November 8, 1890, from complications arising from a traffic accident he had suffered in Paris in July of that year.^[2]

Although Franck did not have the opportunity to play the Trois Chorals himself in public, to teach them, or to accompany their printing and publication, there are contemporary accounts by Louis Vierne and Charles Tournemire of private performances of the works (piano four hands) with his students.^[3][4]

In his critical edition of all César Franck's organ and harmonium works,^[5][6] British organist and musicologist Richard Brasier^[7] documents that Franck created three different manuscripts for each of the three chorales: a first draft, a second, more comprehensive draft with corrections, and a fair copy.^[8]

According to Brasier, however, the manuscripts that were demonstrably available to the music engraver contain corrections, crossed-out material, missing rests in the pedal system, playing instructions in pencil and ink, and faintly legible registrations in Franck's own hand that have been erased. It is likely that these manuscripts, which were essentially complete (with some rather hasty handwriting, especially in Choral III), were working drafts by the composer. The two fair copies of Choral II and Choral III, which are incomplete in some details, were written in clearly legible handwriting in ink, without corrections, and contain a wealth of details that are not present in the manuscripts for the music engraver. Franck was particularly careful in this regard in Choral II, for example in refining the voice leading between the two hands. In contrast, the fair copy of Choral III lacks registrations and manual indications, suggesting that Franck was unable to complete the work before his death due to his deteriorating health. Brasier emphasizes that only 17 days elapsed between the completion of the draft of Choral III and the diagnosis of a respiratory infection, which led to Franck's death 22 days later.^[9]

The published registrations were demonstrably not written by Franck himself, but by another person who has not yet been clearly identified (in French and English), while Franck's original and still faintly recognizable pencil entries (who, in addition to French, also spoke German, but not English) were erased.^[10]

The Trois Chorals were published posthumously on January 29, 1892, by Auguste Durand & Fils in Paris.

None of the manuscripts bear a dedication; nevertheless, the Trois Chorals appeared in 1892 with the following dedications:

• Choral I – “A Monsieur Eugène Gigout”
• Choral II – “A Monsieur Auguste Durand”
• Choral III – “A mon élève Augusta Holmès”

Vincent d'Indy reported that the dedications were actually intended for Alexandre Guilmant, Théodore Dubois, and Eugène Gigout.^[11] According to Léon Vallas, the composer's son, Georges Franck, replaced the names Guilmant and Dubois with Auguste Durand and Augusta Holmès for unknown reasons.^[12] According to Richard Brasier, it is likely that Georges Franck decided which of the existing manuscripts of the Trois Chorals would be used by the publisher Durand for publication after his father's death. In all three cases, the second manuscript versions were selected, which were working drafts for the composer but not the fair copies intended for publication (which Franck was unable to complete due to his health problems, but which contain numerous corrections and changes that are missing in the first two manuscript versions of the Trois Chorals).