@@Paajtor You're so right! Especially this black patina, which is currently being 😪 removed, made such a great, almost unreal picture in front of the plastered sandstone, like a being from another dimension, thank you for your time document! Great organ!
Nice organ I like Gonzalez’s work especially here and Beauvais. They are helped by a fabulous acoustic of course. Only criticism is a fairly “small” pedal organ and no 32ft reed. The 16ft pedal reed is nice and penetrating though.
Always appreciate when someone can give some information on the mechanics. Thanks. One thought I had -- organ music changed over the centuries, so this repertoire was probably unknown to Chartres for a long time. In fact, maybe there was no organ for a long time after the cathedral was built.
I’m from chartres and I was lucky enough to receive an education as an organist in that cathedral, very dear to me. The beautiful organ case was built in the 1530´s, in the Renaissance style. There was originally no room for 32´stops, of course. The Principal 32´ (the biggest and tallest pipes which you can see on each side) was added in 1971. In order to proceed, some sad damages and alterations and to be done to the historical organ case, which caused a great scandal then. The Gonzalez organ, here, was inaugurated in 1971 by the late Pierre Cochereau, an internationally renowned musician who was the organist of Notre-Dame de Paris. President George Pompidou attended the ceremony witch was broadcasted on the French television. I was 12 years old then, and I and remember it quite well, being a pupil of Victor Ruello, the resident organist, then. That four manuals organ no longer exist (for many reasons). Its former state was of three manuals, in romantic sound type, by the way. The case needs curator’s investigation and historical researches, now. The entire instrument that you recorded (over 4000 pipes) was dismantled in October 2022. All metal pipes were melted down in order to cast new organ pipes for an brand new instrument, built by Muhleisen. The new organ is scheduled to be inaugurated in three years from now (I write this on March 7th, 2023). See Muhleisen website (their factory is settled down near Strasbourg, France).
