Hi!
http://www.organosandomenicorieti.it/Manifestazioni/2010_festival_organistico_europeo/Festival_europeo_2010_en.htm (http://www.organosandomenicorieti.it/Manifestazioni/2010_festival_organistico_europeo/Festival_europeo_2010_en.htm)
should be a real ear opener . . .
Best wishes
Forum Admin
Sorry, wrong thread!
Anyway, to call this the most exciting organ in three centuries is, surely, to dismiss countless wonderful organs built since the dawn of the Romantic era?
A good analogy would be to visit "Jurassic Park" and seeing a LIVE Tyrannosaurus Rex ;D
Unfortunately "Jurassic Park" is a fantasy brought to life on a movie screen...
This organ, on the other hand, was built from the "pedals up" with 300 year-old documentation, and using identical materials and tools as would have been done by Dom Bedos himself.
There are, however, some videos (with poor camera audio :'( extant on Youtube of this instrument
being played prior to the inauguration... and with a "forensic ear" one can "listen through" the nasty
camera audio... Not unlike digging up dinosaur bones and trying to figure out what the animal around that skeleton looked like ;)
As good a "signal processor" as our brain is, this process is tiring to say the least ::) Much easier to hear the real thing with real ears, provided one has "transportation"...
Eric
Dear Eric
Sadly transportation failed us on account of the volcanic ash and visitors for this weekend from UK and Belgium including friends of the famous Formentelli organ builders couldn't come. I hope that we'll start to see good photos and hear good recordings.
QuoteAnyway, to call this the most exciting organ in three centuries is, surely, to dismiss countless wonderful organs built since the dawn of the Romantic era?
When I was young in architecture I loved the Gothic and loathed the Greek. Now I love the Greek and tolerate the Gothic. So it is with this series of organs. It's significant that the Albi pipework was comprehensible enough to the romantic era to have been "preserved" by incorporation into the romanticisation of the beast, restored by putting all the romantic stuff into another organ up the road . . . leaving . . . pure gold.
Best wishes
David P