The atypical career of César Franck found an important spur, during the "Second Empire", in the domain of the organ, regenerated as it had been by the celebrated Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. Turning his back on the decorative style of contemporary French organists, Franck composed twelve great pieces from the end of the 1850s to his death in 1890. Becoming increasingly popular, these now unquestioned summits have nonetheless, like all great organ masterpieces, suffered from the isolation of the instrument and from the neglect of the repertory on the part of many listeners. In order to make them better known, eminent musicians and pianists of the early twentieth century - including Harold Bauer and Blanche Selva, the "high priestess" of Franckism - wrote difficult piano transcriptions that, though difficult, were a remarkable demonstration of Franck's fusion of piano and organ techniques, projecting a different and complementary image of these powerful and brilliant works, and high-lighting some of their sources and influences, Chopin, Liszt and Debussy for example.
