Franck: Prelude, Choral and Fugue

It is good to have the opportunity to answer a request of my wife after 15 years. At that time I was playing religiously Debussy & Ravel. My future wife made a suggestion of playing Franck's Prelude Choral and Fugue. I knew she had a model performance in mind, which was made by a senior student around 1996 - we were witnessed the "phenomenon" with many others. His approach was rigorous, with a clear pedaling as usual. I was intrigued about the handling of the fugue. The phrasing of the theme was exotic, fingering was inefficient here and there. Nevertheless the the work sounded magnificent without his usual smooth touch. After the performance he told us that the preparation was "just in time." I understood that the produced impact was partially due to the freshness. Shortly after the performance I bought a score published by Schott and start practice. There were notes sounding odd (later I found they are mere missprints) and tiresome repetitions with "meaningless" change of chords. The length was also an issue to me (nearly 20min) and could not keep practice. Since then this piece was always in my mind. Then I developed a reasoning how I was unprepared to the work. I had almost no knowledge of Franck's works, romantic fugues... I will try to cover some important works related to Frank's composition later, hopefully by my own playing. Upon this second challenge, I bought the Cortot edition and found the shocking phrasing and fingering. He certaintly used the Cortot edition as a guide! I did not use the (risky) techniques, but the suggestions were stimulating.