The majestic organ of La Chaise-Dieu spends the winter and spring recovering its health. If his restoration had not been launched, he risked becoming mute.
“The organ needed major maintenance. It is an exceptional French classical instrument for its intrinsic qualities and for what it represents in the history of La Chaise-Dieu. There is also the decoration which is magnificent.” Olivier Marion is full of praise for this monumental piece which makes the heart of the Casadean abbey beat.
2,500 pipes need to be cleaned
He plays it regularly, sharing this privilege with his organist colleague, Christophe de la Tullaye. Both will have to do without their protégé for a few months. The abbey organ has started to be dismantled in recent days to be completely restored. Representatives of the Joint Syndicate of the Chaise-Dieu project, including its president Marie-Agnès Petit, attended on Wednesday the start of the construction site which will continue until June 2025 and the start of the next tourist season. The lifting work will represent a cost of nearly 100,000 euros. They are supported by the State (Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs) up to 50% and by the local authorities making up the Union (Department of Haute-Loire, urban community and municipality of La Chaise-Dieu). A search for sponsorship is underway, in particular through the Heritage Foundation. The work was recommended for 2022 in view of the advanced deterioration of the wind tunnel skins.
“Concretely, there were holes. If we did nothing, the organ would become silent again.”
Jean-Paul Grimaud (the union director)
The project will include an intervention on the piping – 2,500 pipes – which will be cleaned and approved. The electrical installations will be subject to upgrading. The latest work on the abbey space already concerned electricity.
The organ is a wind instrument. If today, the air comes from an electric blower, the old bellows serve as an essential wind reservoir. The four wedge-shaped bellows weigh a whopping 220 or even 240 kg each. “They were so heavy that we decided to cut them in two, to separate the skins,” explains Corrèze organ builder Olivier Chevron, whose project was selected. But the latter is intended to be reassuring: the wood has not been cut!
The restoration must be done partly in the workshop, in Corrèze. The organ builder works according to the rules of the art using old glues. “We have to do it hot, but the abbey does not offer us the required conditions,” explains Olivier Chevron who noted “a particular construction, quite poorly done at the level of the bellows” according to him.The last restoration of the abbey organ dates back to 1995. The first to 1975.
With Thomas Monnet, approved consulting technician for Historical Monuments of the Ministry of Culture, an exchange must take place to find out whether it is appropriate to respect the original character at the risk of having to intervene again within four decades or whether the factor organ can afford to make an improvement. The dilemma is posed. Just dusting the instrument will easily take a month of work!
The organ builder will also work to treat the woodworms. The mechanics (transmission between the keyboards and the pipes) are very old. Some parts are therefore worn and need to be repaired or adjusted. It is a true work of art that the craftsman will engage in, on site and at home in Corrèze. There are only around sixty of them left in France still practicing the profession.
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Philippe Suc
The organ linked to the history of the festival
The origins of the organ of La Chaise-Dieu remain uncertain. It would have been built in two campaigns.
The first in 1683 with the construction by Jean-Pierre Cox, Flemish carpenter and sculptor, of the gallery and its “small” buffet containing a 13-stop organ. The second, around 1726, saw the installation of the large buffet and the instrumental part by Marin Carouge (1667-1735).
Probably looted during the Revolution, the organ remained silent until its reconstruction in 1975 by the Dunand establishments. The history of this “grand organ” joins that of Georges Cziffra (1921-1994) who initiated the La Chaise-Dieu festival.
The famous Hungarian pianist, after discovering the abbey church and its instrument, then in ruins, during a private stay with Doctor Georges Mazoyer and his wife Suzanne, agreed to give a few concerts in the Casadean city and to donate the fees. collected during the reconstruction of the organ. The latter was the subject of an in-depth restoration by Michel Garnier between 1990 and 1995. The organ benefits from protection as a historic monument. Its buffet was classified by decree of July 4, 1903 and its instrumental part on October 23, 1970.
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