Chapelet Spanish Collection, 18th c. [Hauptwerk]

The two Spanish instruments presented in this sample set are part of the collection of Francis Chapelet at Montpon-Ménestérol. Both organs are placed in the Auditorium, which Chapelet built in the garden of his house.

The organ with the green paint comes from the former monastery of Mondoñedo in Galicia. It was built by an anonymous organ builder at the end of 17th century. It has been restored by Pierre Chéron in 1977. All the stops of the single manual are divided between middle c/c#. The pedal is permanently coupled to the lowest octave of the manual. The instrument has a short octave, which was made chromatic in the sample set. The Hauptwerk software is able to emulate the short octave, if desired.

The instrument with the brown facade was saved by Francis Chapelet from a ruinous church in Castilia. Chapelet bought the organ, and one week after it was moved out, the church's vault collapsed. It was an empty organ case—only the front pipes were preserved and one of the windchests. The front carving bears the date 1736. Gerhard Grenzing restored the instrument in 1978 and enlarged it to allow for a wider repertoire. The organ has two manuals with a chromatic compass, and a full pedal of 30 keys.

The temperament found during the recording was similar to Werckmeister III.

Since both the instruments share the same room, it seemed appealing to put both together into one single sample set. In this way, it is possible to play a duet from a single console, where the lowest two manuals may serve for the Castilian organ, and a third keyboard can host the Galician organ. It is possible, for example, to send the Castilian organ ranks to the speakers positioned left, while sending the audio output of the Galician organ to the right positioned speakers (or using the front and rear speakers in similar manner), emulating the original placement of the instruments at the opposite walls of the auditorium. The pedal can be operated from a single pedal board, especially because the Galician organ has no dedicated pedal stops. To allow for switching the pedal board between organs for a double choir performance, a pedal coupler was added to the Galician organ. When it is desired to play the Castilian instrument only, the pedal coupler of the Galician organ must be off, so that no stops of the Galician organ are heard in the pedal.

Many thanks to Francis Chapelet for allowing us to capture the sound of his Spanish organs!

The link to the Francis Chapelet Collection: www.montpon-les-orgues.fr