This article is taken from
Figaro Histoire "The bloody twilight of French Algeria", find in this issue
a special file on this still burning subject, 60 years after the Evian agreements.
The man is leaning over a square, stocky oak chest, carefully brushing the bars forming the floor, halfway up, with a layer of glue, a mixture of powdered bone and nerves, kept warm at all times. .
"The bone adheres very well, the nerve, it allows to soften,
" he says.
Then, I will fix the sheepskin on it with a rabbit glue, enriched with bone pigments!
For historical organs, these reversible natural glues are always used.
»
We are in Lodève, in Hérault.
Olivier Henry is part of the team at the Manufacture Languedocienne de Grandes Orgues, established in a former drumming plant on the banks of the Lergue, a river which has its source a little higher up on the Causse du Larzac, and this oak chest is the one of the nineteen windchests of the great organ of Notre-Dame being restored.
“The windchest is a centerpiece,
explains Charles Sarelot, the organ builder and harmonist who has managed the factory since 1998,
it is a bit like the heart of the organ.
When the organist presses a key, a valve opens, the air accumulated in the lower part of the windchest enters the engravings, these interstices between the bars, and it is then distributed in the pipes stuck in the screed,
Read alsoNotre-Dame de Paris: behind the scenes of the site of the century
“Look at these wooden zippers that slide between the screed and the engraving,
he shows, activating boards pierced with holes.
These are the registers, which the organist activates by pulling the buttons on the console and which give the color, the timbre of the organ: drone, trumpet, oboe… the windchests of the great organ of Notre-Dame are exceptional!
he marvels.
Sixteen of them still date from the creation of the instrument by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll in 1868. Here, in Lodève, we have carried out complete restorations of the great organs of the cathedrals of Aix-en-Provence, Agen, from Carcassonne, from Lodève… I had never seen a windchest as large as the two pedal windchests at Notre-Dame: each of them measures 2 m by 2!
»
For the organ to sound right, the windchest must be perfectly hermetic, hence the importance of the gluing operations, and Mathilde Sarelot, a novice in the trade, glues, this time with a diluted fish powder, new gaskets of white felt on the holes that will accommodate the pipes of the great organ of Notre-Dame.
Through the window, a square of sunlight gilds the fairness of the oak, highlighting the darker oblique streaks engraved in the wood.
Covered in lead monoxide-laden dust after the fire of April 15, 2019
,
the pipes of the great organ of Notre-Dame were dismantled by organ builders between August and December 2020. Patrick Zachmann/Magnum Photos
Pipes, there are everywhere in the workshop, some in wood, most in tin and lead alloy, mouth or reed, of all sizes.
They do not belong to the Parisian instrument but to that of the Saint-Vincent collegiate church in Montreal, in Aude, also being restored at the factory.
Martin Viallet, who is apprenticed at the highly reputed Organ Building Training Center in Eschau in Alsace, is working on it in tandem with Brice Galinier.
“It takes ten years to be independent.
I always tell young people to take their time, ”
says the latter.
Preserved near Paris since their removal in 2020, most of the pipes of the great organ of Notre-Dame have just been transported to the Atelier Cattiaux-Chevron, in Liourdres, in Corrèze, where they are in the process of to be decontaminated.
Before arriving in Lodève, the windchests were cleaned at the Quoirin workshop, in Saint-Didier, in the Vaucluse, where they will return to install the 850 electromagnets which will open the valves and the 180 pneumatic cylinders which operate the registers.
A great historical organ like that of Notre-Dame is a very complex machine: it is the only one in France which was maintained by an organ builder specifically assigned to its maintenance.
Faced with the urgency and scale of the project, the three manufacturers had in fact come together to respond to the call for tenders launched in the spring of 2021 by the Public Establishment responsible for the conservation and restoration of Notre-Dame. , project owner of the site.
“With the reconstruction of the spire, the vaults and the structures destroyed, the restoration of the great organ is a major operation in the rebirth of the cathedral”,
affirms Army General Jean-Louis Georgelin, its president.
With its 7,952 pipes divided into 115 stops, the great organ of Notre-Dame is indeed the largest instrument in France in terms of stops.
He emerged almost unscathed from the fire of April 15, 2019.
" It's a miracle !
is still surprised Christian Lutz, one of the seven French organologists, adviser to the Historic Monuments, who shares with his colleague Eric Brottier the project management of the work.
The great organ suffered neither from the heat of the fire nor from the water.
The firefighters managed to save him.
It had no audible damage, we could have made it work again the same day if it had not been invaded by a layer of dust loaded with lead monoxide.
In the summer of 2019, during the heat wave, we were again scared because the organ is not an outdoor instrument, but in the end the consequences were not very serious.
»
Between August 3 and December 9, 2020, dressed in waterproof suits, equipped with respiratory protection masks with assisted ventilation, eleven organ builders took turns on the 30 m high scaffolding installed in the cathedral, to dismantle the keyboard consoles, windchests, pipes, including chamades, these horizontal pipes placed at the foot of those on the front, the systems for transmitting note and stop commands…
Removing the pipes was a delicate operation
.
It will take six months for them to be harmonized one by one.
Patrick Zachmann / Magnum Photos.
Only the case of the great organ dating from 1733 has remained in place, the cleaning of which has just begun under the responsibility of Virginie Valenza, heritage architect working with the chief architect of Historic Monuments in charge of the cathedral, Philippe Villeneuve, the four large bellows which will be restored with hot glue this summer (it must be at least 20°C in the cathedral so that the glue does not freeze too quickly), the large facade pipes, including the metal, which is too soft , could flatten during transport, as well as around thirty large wooden pipes which will be lowered one by one onto the scaffolding, restored and put back in place in October 2022.
A large historical organ like that of Notre-Dame is a very complex machine: it is the only one in France that was maintained by an organ builder specifically assigned to its maintenance, with very frequent visits, much more than the two interventions which most instruments benefit most from.
The last restoration dated from 2014 and the windchests had been restored in 1992. As for the current work, they should last until the end of the century.
Of the approximately 8,000 organs in France, around 1,600 are classified or listed as Historic Monuments, but
“the great organ of Notre-Dame is in itself a summary of the history of the organ,
explains Christian Lutz.
During work in 1992, several metal pipes visibly predating the 18th century – although difficult to date – were found hidden at the bottom of the pedal.
Perhaps they are vestiges of the Gothic organ of the 15th century, and in this case, they are the oldest organ pipes in France.
»
Read alsoDiscovery of a mysterious lead sarcophagus at Notre-Dame de Paris
If an organ is mentioned in 1198 in the cathedral, it is only in 1357 that the presence of an instrument hung in a swallow's nest on the wall of the nave is attested.
As early as 1403, the Duke of Berry had a Gothic organ built by his organ builder, Frédéric Schambantz, on the stone gallery placed under the western rose window, on the site of the current great organ.
In its lower part a sun was turning and an automaton was playing, it is said.
Reworked several times during the 17th century, it nevertheless remained in place until the organist Antoine Calvière obtained from the canons of the cathedral a new instrument, built between 1731 and 1733 by François Thierry and whose classical organcase five turrets and a few pipes have reached us.
“Each time the great organ was rebuilt, part of the previous instrument was reused, mainly for budgetary reasons,
specifies Christian Lutz.
This was still the case for Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, who built the current organ in 1868, even if he succeeded, despite the financial constraints and the instructions of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, in installing an organ with five particularly innovative keyboards for the time!
»
Once this great organ steeped in history is reassembled in the fall of 2023, a fundamental task will remain to be accomplished: to harmonize it.
The team of harmonists, including Charles Sarelot and Bertrand Cattiaux, who has been watching over the great organ for forty years, will take turns at night for six months to be able to work in silence and concentration.
They will adjust the 7952 pipes one by one, so that each has the same timbre, the same intensity as its neighbors, and that its pitch in the range is just right.
Only then, when the instrument begins to sing under the vaults of Notre-Dame, will all the organologists and makers, in Paris, Lodève, Saint-Didier or Liourdres, know if the restoration has been a success.
Virgile Bardin is foreman at the Cattiaux-Chevron factory in Liourdres, Corrèze, where the pipes are decontaminated.
They will return to their place in the cathedral in 2023. Only the organ case from 1733 and some of the larger pipes, which are too fragile, have remained under the rose window.
PHOTOPQR/LA MONTAGNE/Stéphanie Para/MAXPPP.
On Saturday, April 2, the site's arts and crafts village will be present from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Collège des Bernardins, with the support of the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation.
Free and without reservation.
"The bloody twilight of French Algeria"
, 132 pages, €8.90, available on newsstands and on the Figaro Store.
