Litanies by Jean-Baptiste Robin (live in Saint-Eustache)

[MrOrgelbau]

How lucky we humans are for the ability to create such amazing acoustical spaces, and the pipe organs that play inside them!

[blackhawknj]

Jehan Alain-a great musician, and a brave man. Mort pour la France!

[Tobyfication]

it's awesome how they held the concert at night, really adds to the excitement and environment

[ajmtx333]

Organ builder is Van den Heuvel

[orgue96]

Un grand maître pour une grande pièce! que pourrait-on dire de plus, regardez cet été mon professeur qui a enregistré un de ses disque va bientôt sortir. Une dernière petite chose, regarder-le bien jouer; il ne joue pas tout le temps avec le son et ce car la console est reliée par ondes radio et le temps que l’information arrive en haut on le voit jouer autre chose ce qui est très difficile pour jouer un mouvement rapide. un grand bravo donc.

[Streetcar1743]

Great piece of music, but what is the brand name of the organ? I love the board, it reminds me of the Cavaille-Coll design at St. Sulpice. It doesn't have the mechanical coupling like the old consoles used to have. Also someone stated a while back but I am not sure if it's true, that you can have mechanical coupling added to the organ.

[richardjl41]

guilloesque!

[kdh652]

And don't forget the astounding Clicquot at Poitiers where Robin is titulaire.

[Violanta100]

Bestå-å-ått!



[2468HOTROD]

Wow, what a noise maker! Beautiful noise! Awesome!

[sfbonedoc]

Excellent and very exciting performance of this work, now a classic. Fine videography. The key to sound delay, characteristic of this type of action, is striking.

[EccentricRichard]

WHAT ON EARTH is he doing at about 3:04 and 3:20? Ridiculously rushed.

[WVBoy25401]

Autofocus FAIL at 3:05 :D

[DesseinsEternels]

Strepitoso. Il virtuosismo di questo grande organista e' totalmente al servizio della musica e non viceversa.

[kevinlew41]

.....dashed it off as if it were effortless. Bravo!

[chevalierdurufle]

Went to a funeral once at Pompey Cathedral where they carried the poor beggar out at the end with this voluntary - absolutely the most majestic way to go off to the next place, don't you think?

[logica10]

Seems that this is a console with some memorisation mechanism. If you watch the stop knobs, you'll note that they are automatically moved back and forth in order to turn on the desired working set. Is this the original console (mechanical memory) or a modernised one (solenoid-operated)?

[willowthebored]

@logica10

This is the digital nave console; as I understand it there are pistons somehow tucked under the leading edge of the manuals (I still don't get how that works but that's how it's been explained to me); It is also possible that he's just using toe pistons for all the registration changes, which would certainly be a wise idea on an Alain piece. To my knowledge the only organ that ever received Cavaille-Coll's pneumatic combo action was Saint Sulpice.

[EccentricRichard]

@willowthebored - the thumb pistons are not buttons in the conventional sense, but rather electronic touch-sensitive sensors, just like my Bosch washing machine, in fact, only VdH got there a long time before Bosch did! =D.

[willowthebored]

@EccentricRichard Oh, so THAT'S how it works. I'll bet it takes some getting used to. =D

[EccentricRichard]

@willowthebored - well, all I can say is it's bloody infuriating on my washing machine! Forever brushing buttons and selecting/deselecting options, changing the spin speed, sometimes stopping the machine altogether... I can only hope that VdH's system is a little less sensitive!

[tubamaxima]

Bloody marvelous. I have heard many people say the St.Eustache Van der Heuvel organ is "cold" compared to other CavailleColl organs in Paris. I think this organ is wonderful.

[choirboyfromhell1]

God, I love that last chord!!!!

[RoelKelder1967]

It's amazing, huge.

[morris9409]

Infinitely superior to the Marie-Claire version. That woman gets on my nerves.

[Brideshead09]

"-5" Oh dear. The innate stupidity of YouTubers. What I love about them is that they automatically mark down anything even vaguely critical. The strange and ironic thing here is that morris9409 was complementing the performance at hand, whilst slating (quite restrainedly, I feel) another "organist" who, I might add, gets on my nerves as well.

[EccentricRichard]

@morris9409 - you don't think that the composer's sister might have some idea how to play the piece, having known it since it was first being written?! Marie-Claire is one of the GREAT organists: this guy's performance is slapdash, rushed, showily virtuosic but without artistry. Think before you write next time.

[Fr33artist]

Just heard this today in an organ recital. Great piece!

[Organiste06]

I think St Eustache organ is a very interesting instrument, perhaps more interesting thant Cavaillé-Coll's instruments. There is a lot of things to learn about it.

[simonsteam]

My god thats the best version of Alains famous piece ive heard. sounds incredible on this organ.Baptise is a great organist.Only other organ that could make this sort of sound on this piece is in notre Dame.

[ds1868]

Why Notre Dame? This is a better organ than Notre Dame. St Sulpice across the river is a better Organ than Notre Dame. Even the organ in St Pauls Cathedral in London is better than the organ in Notre Dame. Shame, but true.

[organum74]

I agree. And if we stay in France, I'll say that the best instruments, are St Ouen in Rouen, St Sernin in Toulouse, St Eustache, St Sulpice, and after few others, Notre-Dame, which is a fantastatic organ, but placed too high in the cathedral, ans the chamades cover the other stops in the tutti.

[GJmusique]

Thing about the ND is not the Chamade alone. There are too many mixtures and aliquots, something Cavaille-Coll didn't do at all, not to that extend. It gives the ND organ a very 'screaming' tutti. In my opinion St-Eustache suffers from the same problem. Courtesy of Guillou, Latry & Co.

My personal favourite is St. Sulpice, basically unaltered througout the years. =)

[organum74]

Yes, problem we do not have at St Ouen, for example, or St Sulpice, where the tutti sounds full and powerful, and does not scream like you say. And I repeat that chamades are, in most of cases, a problem for the balance of the instrument, even if we know that they are used today to reinforce the tutti for very large churches.

[GJmusique]

Well, you nailed the problem. French reeds are already very powerful, so you will need more foundation stops to balance them out, even more when you have chamades.

Also, 'tutti' doesn't necessarily mean 'draw all stops' (which on the other hand *should* sound OK at least)...

In my humble opinion, I think St Sulpice is even better balanced out than Rouen, which still sounds too 'reedy' - although that may be down to my personal taste as well.

[polsterj]

You don't need chamades to fill a church!

Take St. Ouen for example, a huge gothic Abbey Church, and Cavaillé-Coll didn't only manage to fill the church with 64 stops only, he also created a legendarious instrument. St. Ouen has chamades, but they are not the screaming kind of chamades which you probably meant.

[willowthebored]

@organum74

Quite frankly, I'll take Cathédrale Sainte-Croix in Orleans over Eustache and Notre Dame (and over Saint Sulpice for some works).

[AnOrganCornucopia]

@organum74 - with respect, you only named Cavaillé-Coll organs. Debierre did great work from the 1890s, and rebuilt many C-Cs - that at S. Trinité, Paris, is notably successful. There was Ducroquet, later taken over by Merklin; Dalstein & Haerpfer in Alsace; Henry Didier (Laon Cathedral is his masterpiece) and, my favourite, Puget in Toulouse. Nôtre Dame de la Dalbade in Toulouse is stupendous - and has a much better acoustic than S. Sernin. There is no finer organ in France.

[AnOrganCornucopia]

@ds1868 - what do you mean, 'even'? St Paul's is one of the greatest organs in the world. ND is a mucked-up travesty akin to what battered survivals there are of most Skinner organs in the US (I know there are a few intact Skinners, but not many).

[DesireeDeFete]

I love listening to this organ. Is there any Cavaille-Coll history to this organ?

[ds1868]

No Cavaille Coll history at all. The old Merklin organ was removed and the Dutch firm of Van de Heuvel built this new organ (within the old case). The organ is totally 100% new.

[md95065]

Well, the organ is *almost* "100% totally new".

It does contain some pipework from the previous instrument including a Willis Corno di Bassetto.

[ds1868]

That's interesting - how did a Willis stop land up in St Eustache? Also was this Willis I or III? I suspect the former!

[md95065]

No - I believe that it was added to the St Eustache organ at the request of Joseph Bonnet who became organist in 1906. That puts it after Father Willis's death (although of course it might have been old Father Willis pipework) and probably into the Willis III era, although I do not know exactly when it was installed.

[EccentricRichard]

@md95065 - nope, that'd be the much less-known Henry II, son of Henry I and brother of Vincent. "Father" Henry I's head reed voicer was also a Willis, his brother George... and Vincent did much of the invention of actions, pistons etc.

[andre26071955]

Jehan Ariste Alain's fabulous music at it's very best;Bravo!!!

[m1riccabona]

great organ, great piece, great organist!