Composed over 1898 - 1899, Vierne's Symphony in D minor for organ is his first major work and an ambitious throw at continuing the lineage of large-scale serious works for organ advanced by his mentors— Franck (in his Grande Pièce symphonique), and Widor, in his brilliant series of ten symphonies. Vierne's seriousness of purpose is announced at the outset by an ominously searching prelude followed by a large, energetic fugue which, in their closely wrought extensiveness, proclaim fealty to the great German tradition of Bach and Beethoven which had inspired Franck. The third movement pastorale—wistful and contrapuntally effusive—also recalls Franck, not only in its title but in a gentle cyclical reminiscence of the prelude's majestic theme. A brief, skittish Allegro vivace scherzo brings a welcome contrast to the solemnity of the foregoing, though an elaborately canonic central section looms to confirm that, for Vierne, charm and high seriousness are quite compatible. The long, yearning Andante spins a moving meditation, a dream of happiness—almost a love song—which proves to be, in several senses, the symphony's heart. And a powerful, bravura Final of virile assertiveness brings the symphony to an exhilarating close. The Final became vastly popular—Vierne referred to it as "my Marseillaise" and arranged it for organ and orchestra in 1926. The symphony as a whole announced the startling emergence of a major compositional voice and set the pattern for the five organ symphonies to follow—a suite-like succession of movements in which confessional moments of disconcerting intimacy are juxtaposed with manifestations of eerie fantasy and virtuoso movements of tremendous power.

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