Les orgues Thomas en disque

Version française : cliquer ici. Work on the restoration, reconstruction, and reorganization of the organ at Holy Trinity American Cathedral is going forward! For the record, this instrument was built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll (Opus 613) and inaugurated by Alexandre Guilmant on October 5, 1887. It was rebuilt in 1921 by Charles Mutin, who enlarged and electrified it while retaining Cavaillé-Coll's pipework, and it was enlarged again in 1930 by Auguste Convers, once again retaining Cavaillé-Coll's sound elements. He added a fifth expressive and powerful “Solo” division with five stops, including two reed stops built by Henry Willis III, the famous British organ builder: a Tuba 8 and a French Horn 8. The range of the keyboards was increased to 61 notes, with real upper octaves (73 notes) for the Positive, Récit, and Solo. The Great reeds were placed under expression. The whole system operated on an electro-pneumatic action, with Pitman windchests. In 1972, a new console, built by Beuchet-Debierre, was installed to control both the Great Organ and the new Erwin Müller organ, installed under the west window of the Cathedral in 1967 (with dual transmission and a mechanical console in the gallery), which had 18 stops (26 ranks). In 1993, Bernard Dargassies made further modifications to the instrument, put the Solo back in action and replaced Müller's instrument in the west gallery with an 11 real stops organ (17 stops and 21 ranks) with exclusively electric transmission, playable from a small mobile console and from the main console. More about the Cathedral's former organ on the Cathedral's website