Casavant Frères

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The Casavant pipe organ at Notre-Dame Basilica
The Casavant pipe organ at Notre-Dame Basilica

Casavant Frères is a prominent Canadian company that builds fine pipe organs based in Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec.

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[edit] Company history and technical innovations

The company had its beginnings with Joseph Casavant, the first Canadian-born organ builder. He received his first commission to build an organ in 1840 and went on to build a total of 17 organs.

The company then continued under the direction of his two sons, Claver and Samuel, and thrives to this day. The brothers travelled extensively in Europe, studying organs and organ construction. They returned to Canada and set up their firm in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, in 1879. The company still continues at this location.

Their instruments boasted many innovations such as concave pedalboards, balanced expression pedals, keyboard improvements, and other enhancements. Their reputation as organ builders of international status was cemented in 1891 with their construction of the organ for the Notre-Dame de Montréal Basilica, a four-manual organ of eighty-two stops. This famous organ features adjustable combinations and speaking pipes of thirty-two foot length in the façade.

They won the Grand Prix at the International Exhibition held in Antwerp, Belgium in 1930.

They built organs around the world, including Canada, the United States, France, the West Indies, South and Central America, South Africa, and Japan. Their organs have been praised by many famous organists over the last 100 years, including Guilmant, Vierne, Widor, Bonnet, Lemare, Dethier, Courboin, Bingham, and many others who inaugurated and played Casavant organs.

Many organists learn to play on Casavant organs because they have been installed in the leading colleges, universities and conservatories in the United States and Canada.

After the death of the Casavant brothers, the company continued to add new innovations to their instruments. These include an extraordinarily reliable key contact and tracker touch mechanism, which is a hallmark of the Casavant playing action.

During the 1960s, Casavant pioneered new electronic technology to the capture system of combination actions.

In 1960, the company returned to mechanical action technology and has since built over two hundred tracker action instruments ranging in size from a single manual portable Continuo of four stops to two, three, and four manual organs.

New technology, such as solid-state coupling and switching systems, multiplex, multi-memory combination actions and MIDI have been adopted. Other improvements, such as more effective expressive enclosures, continue to be made.

Casavant organs tend to have a "French" sound.

[edit] Some significant Casavant organs

[edit] Recordings

There have been many recordings performed on Casavant Frères organs. Many recent recordings are listed here [6].

Celebrated Canadian pianist Glenn Gould recorded his 1962 album The Art of the Fugue by Bach (Columbia Records) on a Casavant Frères organ in All Saints' Kingsway Anglican Church in Toronto. The organ was a very advanced design but was destroyed by fire shortly after the recording was made.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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