Music at Church of Our Lady                   Joe Carere

THE ORGAN

The organ at Church of Our Lady was built in 1919 by Casavant Frères of Ste. Hyacinthe, Quebec, who were then, as now, the leading company of organ builders in Canada. The style used by the builders, at this point close to their retirement, was little changed from the style they had experienced in Europe forty years earlier. It is thus an organ of the late nineteenth century in concept, and as the only changes made over the past 80-plus years have been mechanical renovations, the sounds we hear today are genuine Anglo-French nineteenth century voices, as the instrument escaped the tonal "improvements" so popular in the 1960s and 70s. 

It is thus uniquely suited to the "symphonic" organ music written in the second half of the last century, which called for a rich blend of a range of sonorities, similar to an orchestra. The symphonic organ also has the ability to crescendo from a quiet, warm, lush sound to a thrilling climax, capped with blazing reeds, such as trumpets. As is clear from the stoplist, there is a preponderance of 8' stops. They are voiced so that the majority will combine together to provide a remarkably wide palette of tonal colours.

As the original pipes and console are intact – and indeed in regular use – the instrument was recognized by the Royal Canadian College of  Organists as a Heritage Instrument, worthy of special care.

For the record, the organ has 42 different stops, distributed across 3 manuals and a full pedalboard. The magnificent case, carved in light oak, and shaped to complement the rose window, contains about 2,400 pipes.