Vierne's Second Symphony for organ captures him on the threshold of his maturity—despite partial blindness, a commanding, even swashbuckling, figure of passionate eloquence and cunning technical competence. Having competed for and won the post of titular organist at the prestigious Notre Dame de Paris on May 21, 1900, by the time he came to compose the Second Symphony, between July 1902 and April 1903, the rich timbres and sheer power of Notre Dame's splendid Cavaillé-Coll instrument had become an extension of himself. If the First Symphony for organ seemed less a symphony than a suite, the Second measures up to the form with an initial Allegro of virile assertiveness whose contrasting themes, in good Franckist cyclic fashion, are pressed to supply melodic material for succeeding movements. Before the symphony was completed, Vierne's preview performance of the ruminative second movement Choral and blithe third movement Scherzo drew from no less a critic than Debussy a stunning notice in Gil Blas—"M. Vierne's symphony is truly remarkable. It combines rich musicality with ingenious discoveries in the special sonority of the organ. J.S. Bach, the father of us all, would have been well pleased with M. Vierne." Vierne, himself, thought highly enough of the scherzo that he later transcribed it for organ and orchestra. The following cantabile is a pithy meditation escalating in intensity to a sort of tormented rapture—a notable instance of the chromatically inflected morbidity which often besets Vierne's most searching expressions—before subsiding in eloquent disquiet. The virtuoso Final whips the previous movement's uneasiness to an ever more tortured Sturm und Drang, intense and powerful, which achieves resolution only through a bravura flourish.

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