Virgil Fox (1912-1980) plays César Franck's Choral in E Major on the 1953 Aeolian-Skinner organ (5 manuals, 157 speaking stops) of Riverside Baptist Church, New York City. This piece, directed to be played 'Moderato', is the first of the Trois Chorals pour Grand-Orgue, penned in 1890 by César Auguste Jean Guillaume Hubert Franck (1822-1890), the Belgian (Liège)-born Organiste Titulaire of the Basilique Saint-Clothilde in Paris, where he presided at a three-manual, 46-stop Cavaillé-Coll organ built in 1859, of which he remarked "Mon nouvel orgue? C'est un orchestre!". This instrument, sadly, has been rebuilt out of all recognition. The Trois Chorals represent the final flourishing of Franck's creative genius before his untimely death in 1890 from complications of pleurisy. Huge thanks to Lew Williams of Organ Stop Pizza, Mesa, AZ for sending me this marvellous recording. If ever you're in the area, do visit OSP and hear the 4/78 Wurlitzer there...