Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century France The French Classical Organ Case

Photographs | Review Quiz

Appearance The case of the typical French Classical organ is similar in some ways to that of other northern European organs of the time. The organ will usually be found in a rear gallery, and you can expect to see two cases on these instruments: The main case will be at some small distance from the front of the gallery, with the keyboards built into the base. In many cases, particularly in organs built in the early seventeenth century, the base of the main case will be narrower than the main part, which will extend beyond the sides of the base. A second, smaller case will be mounted on the gallery rail, at your back when you are seated at the keydesk. This second case was often designed as a miniature of the main case, but without the narrow base found on the main organ. The photograph to the right is of the organ in the Church of St. Gervais in Paris. The instrument dates from the late seventeenth century, and the viewpoint from which this photograph was made serves to illustrate the placement of the two primary parts of the case. The smaller case is not simply mounted on the front of the gallery rail - - it actually forms the central section of it. Although it is difficult to see in the photograph, you should also note that the main case has an overhang at the impost level, giving it the "tulip" shape seen in seventeenth-century organs from the lowlands. Looking at the photograph above, you might think that the organ had only two divisions -- after all, there are only two cases, or boxes, visible. If you thought about it a little longer, and if you were familiar with earlier organs from the lowlands, you would think about the possibility of a small pedal division located behind the main case. Either way, you would expect to see a divided main case if there were other manual divisions present in the organ. The French Classical organ case was not divided, though, either in its internal structure (so that each division was in it own separate "box") or in its façade (so that the appearance of the pipe display was evidence of the internal layout). In a French case of the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries, the pipes in the façade all stood at impost level, arranged in single-story flats and rounded towers, with the taller towers at the ends of the façade. The placement of all pipes in the main chest on one level presented something of a problem in large instruments, because there were only two ways to build a large case and still maintain the basic design principle. In a large organ, the case could be deeper (from front to back), or it could be wider (taking up more space from side to side). A deeper case would not have projected the sound as well as a shallow one, so the usual solution in building the case of a large French Classical organ was to make the case wide and shallow. Extreme widths make the flats so wide that balance between flats and towers seemed to be lost, so most very large French Classical organs extend the concept of flats and towers in alternation to include five towers. The photograph to the left is of the 1773 organ built by J. E. Isnard at the basilica of Ste. Marie Madeleine in St. Maximin-en-Var in South France. Both the main case and the positif have façades that show all pipe feet standing on the same level, with five rounded towers separated by single-story flats. Even with the added width, the extension of the main case at the impost level means the narrower base that the French inherited from their lowlands predecessors is retained. Look at the diagram to the right - - a visual mnemonic that might help you recognize the characteristics of French cases in the future. The outline of such cases resembles the skyline of a chateau, with the large towers at the extremes looking like towers along a castle wall, and the other towers looking like the silhouettes of buildings within a castle keep. In fact, if you move the mouse pointer over the diagram, you will see just how close the resemblance can be between the contours of a large French Classical organ and that of a French chateau.

Photographs You can make a selection from the choices below to see enlargements of some of the photographs on this page. You will have to use your browser's "back" button to return to this page. Paris, St. Gervais. 1024 x 754 pixels St. Maximin, Ste. Marie-Madeleine. 514 x 768 pixels

Top of Page | Photographs | Review Quiz

---

© 1999, 2000 James H. Cook