When, after eight years, Vierne returned to the organ in the summer of 1911 for his Third Symphony, he was a far more experienced composer, and he was also more intimately familiar with his organ at Notre Dame. Vierne would write many more organ works in the future, but this is considered his masterpiece.

First of the five movements is an Allegro maestoso with a stunning opening gesture, a figure that sweeps brutally upward followed by grand, thick, ever-modulating chords that evolve into an imposing theme. Soon Vierne turns his attention to the more lyrical but still dour second theme, linking them with a substantial fugato transition that employs the defining rhythmic unit of the first subject. Vierne jumbles these elements rhapsodically rather than wrenching them into a formal sonata structure, although the movement does possess great rhythmic and thematic unity.

The second movement, Cantilène, is, as the title implies, a song without words. Not the most comforting of songs, though; the single, long theme meanders unsettlingly through A minor, winding through various ornaments and uneasily dipping into other keys before fading away. At the midpoint comes the Intermezzo, offering some emotional relief with its balletic D major acrobatics. The melody leaps and twists in a style that almost seems Spanish, and modulates far from its tonal center. The music is slightly grotesque in a mildly humorous manner, something of a low-key danse macabre.

The symphony's most substantial movement and its emotional center is the B minor Adagio. Three bars of pedal notes introduce the theme, which has echoes of Gregorian chant, although it sounds far more like César Franck once the main matter shifts to the manuals. The melody is sinuous and meditative, the harmony chromatic and Franckian, the rhythm vague. Vierne thought highly enough of this movement to transcribe it for organ and orchestra and present it on his 1927 tour of the United States.

The Finale returns to F sharp minor, and, in true organ-symphony form, is a challenging toccata. This one begins quietly but builds to an impressive noise with its first theme, a largely rhythmic affair with a vortex of an accompaniment. The second theme is more lyrical, but is obsessed with small melodic cells rather than unspooling a long aria as in the previous movement; the accompaniment remains agitated. It's the first theme, slightly smoothed out, that carries the movement to its apotheosis, a conclusion of great loudness and emotional force.

© James Reel, Rovi