Cavaillé-Coll and the French Romantic Tradition
ISBN: 9780300239171
Platform/Publisher: Ebook Central / Yale University Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Limited; Download: 7 Days at a Time
Subjects: Fine Arts;

Organists, scholars of the organ and its music, and listeners who love French romantic organ music will all welcome this definitive account of the early career of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, the greatest organ builder of nineteenth-century France. Based on the author's earlier Cavaillé-Coll and the Musicians , this engaging book describes Cavaillé-Coll's relationships with César Franck and such other contemporary composer/organists as Lefébure-Wély, Danjou, and Lemmens. Fenner Douglass draws on previously unavailable primary archives to highlight the projects that were pivotal to Cavaillé-Coll's success, among them the magnificent instruments he designed and installed in St. Denis, La Madeleine, St. Vincent-de-Paul, and other churches in and around Paris. Of special interest is the documentation Douglass presents pertaining to the instrument for Franck at Ste. Clotilde in Paris.

In the final chapter, the author discounts the popular belief that Cavaillé-Coll in his old age foresaw the future popularity of electropneumatic key action and regretted his inability to become involved in that development. In fact, Douglass says, the organ builder had little interest in the use of electricity as a supplementary source of energy for the organ.


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