Franck's only symphony was a late composition, first performed in Paris in February 1889, a year before his death. It splendidly reveals the great Belgian composer's musical individuality, and echoes powerfully the glories of the late French Romantic style.
Today, a century after its first presentation, the Symphony in D Minor is one of the most performed and recorded symphonic works in the repertoire. This authoritative Dover edition makes it available in full score in a sturdy, yet inexpensive format designed to bring you a lifetime of pleasurable study.
Although he was deeply influenced by Bach's contrapuntal technique and by Wagner's chromatic harmonies, Franck achieved a highly distinctive musical identity in his work. His pupil Dukas commented: "Franck's language is strictly individual, of an accent and quality hitherto unused, and recognizable among all other idioms."
He was influenced not only as a composer but as an organ virtuoso and a teacher, numbering among his students and followers d'Indy, Chausson, and a host of other important modern French composers. His greatest works, among them the Symphony in D Minor, combine depth and monumentality with a sweeping, almost mystical lyricism — qualities that underlay his importance as a leading figure of 19th-century French musical life.

Reprint of Symphonie pour Orchestre par César Franck, J. Hamelle, Paris, n.d.