Daniel Roth at the magnificent Cavaillé-Coll organ of Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre in Paris

First recording of the great Cavaillé-Coll organ at the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre in Paris

00:00 Toccata de la Cinquième Symphonie Ch. M. Widor
06:40 Choral III en la mineur C. Franck

Quatre improvisations sur des mélodies grégoriennes
21:45 Cortège sur l'introït “Cogitationes" de la messe du Sacré-Cœur
26:24 Offertoire sur “Ave Maria”
33:21 Communion sur “Ave Verum”
39:03 Postlude sur “Te Deum”

aux grandes orgues Aristide Cavaillé-Coll (1898) de la
Basilique du Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre : Daniel Roth, titulaire.

Enregistrement réalisé les 16 et 17 mars 1980
Prise de son et montage : Gregor Klein
Assistance et préparation technique : Gerhard Löffler.

This recording was digitised directly from the master tape.

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Informations from the LP-Inlay:
The organ of Sacré-Cœur, an unknown!
It was installed in the Basilica in 1919, and today we present its first recording!... it was very rarely played in concert! Why is that? We must not forget that the Basilica is dedicated to the perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament by day and by night. Between the two world wars, people also increasingly lost interest in the symphonic organ; some discredited it because it was allegedly only built by the organ builder Mutin, who was known for his mediocre works...
For some time now, the renewed interest in the Romantic organ has enabled some French and German organists and musicologists to collect numerous documents on its history, which are summarised here:
The organ of Sacré-Cœur goes back to the instrument designed and built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll in 1898 for the castle of the Baron de l'Espée, the Illbaritz, in Biarritz. At that time, it had 70 stops distributed over 4 manuals with 61 notes, three of them expressive, with three Chamade stops 16' 8' 4', and a Pedal organ with 32 notes and three 32', two of which are open, Flute and Bombarde. The third organ in France in a castle! The third instrument also from the immense production A. Cavaillé-Coll after St. Sulpice and Notre-Dame before the Trocadéro.
It is an enlarged copy of the A. Cavaillé-Coll organ of the Albert- HalI, Town Hall in Sheffield (England) 1873. Moreover, since the layout and the internal disposition are absolutely identical, these two instruments have tonal characteristics that are unique in the oeuvre of A. Cavaillé-Coll:
- three swellable manuals,
- Chamade stops 16' 8' 4' with high pressure, in the upper register, hidden behind the case,
- manual keyboards with 61 notes.
The organ of the Baron de l'Espée had, as far as the balance between the different families of stops was concerned, proportions that Cavaillé perhaps used nowhere else: fundamental and reed stops were very numerous, mutations and mixtures rare. Aristide Cavaillé-Coll probably thought that in this way he could solve the difficult problem of accommodating a "cathedral" organ in a chateau hall. In general, he disposed the church organ differently from the organ in the concert hall, but the proportions are also very different between the church organ with about 60 stops and the large instruments of St-Sulpice and Notre-Dame in Paris.
For all these reasons, Mutin, after taking over the Baron organ in the first years of the 20th century, made some changes to the disposition in view of the move to Sacré-Cœur, based on the organ of Notre-Dame, which was only about ten stops larger. However, he left the disposition and the transmission untouched; the pipework is still very much A. Cavaillé-Coll.
The two restorations of 1930 and 1960 did not fundamentally alter it, and since the Sheffield organ was destroyed by fire in 1937, it is the only example with the features described above. In contrast, large fluctuations in humidity caused severe damage to the windchests and all the leather parts. The ever-increasing air leaks mean that the stops no longer pull properly; the instrument no longer keeps in tune, especially the mixtures and mutations, and the fundamental voices themselves are no longer correct. The organ fell silent several times; in 1979, a month's work was necessary to breathe some life back into it in anticipation of the major restoration. This has just been decided, with the help of great financial efforts, by the Mayor of Paris and the Rector of the Basilica. Its aim is to return to a fully "Aristide Cavaillé-Coll" ensemble.
This record is therefore a historical document about the condition of the organ before the restoration. To avoid overly discordant sounds, the Mixtur stops, the Cornets and the Carillon were not used. The microphones were placed far enough away to reduce the intensity of the air leaks. Despite all these precautions, some background noise is perceptible, partly because the Basilica is open day and night for adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. The listener may please excuse this.