The Cavaillé-Coll organ in the Philharmonie, Haarlem

Since the restoration and re-inauguration in 2006 of the monumental Cavaillé-Coll organ in the main hall of the concert hall ‘Philharmonie Haarlem’, Haarlem is now the proud home of two unique concert organs in mint condition. However, the contrast between the instruments could hardly be greater. The 18th century organ in the Grote Kerk possesses a completely different character to that of the late romantic organ in the concert hall, both in terms of sound, (and the way therefore in which the organs are played) and construction. The two organs have one important factor in common though. Both organ ‘types’ were developed primarily for organists to improvise on. In the 18th century Calvinist liturgy, for which the Müller organ was designed, the organist improvised almost exclusively. The same can be said of the 19th century French mass for which Cavaillé-Coll built his famous instruments; the job of the organist was to ‘colour’ the mass, by improvising at the appropriate moments. It is, then, an unlikely (but wonderful!) situation that Haarlem, the organ and improvisation city, is the proud home of these two iconic organs, and can, as a consequence, expand and develop its improvisation tradition.

The Amsterdam ‘Paleis voor Volksvlijt’
The Cavaillé-Coll organ in the Philharmonie was not in fact built for its current home, nor was it built for a Cathedral. In general terms however, the famous French master’s organs did not vary whether they were built for a large church, a small salon, or a living room.... The only variable factors were the number of speaking stops and the voicing, depending on the space for which the organ was built.
The organ’s first home was in Amsterdam. The so-called Paleis voor Volksvlijt was opened in 1864 by councillor, doctor, and philanthropist Samuel Sarphati, as part of his vision to end an era of economic and moral decline and to usher in, in its place, an era of “happiness, development, achievement, blessing and prosperity for the entire fatherland.” The impressive complex was based on London’s Crystal Palace, and stood on the Frederiksplein on the spot now inhabited by De Nederlandsche Bank.
Plans were made as early as 1874 to provide the building with a large concert organ. On the recommendation of the French ambassador (and organist) Charles-Marie Philbert, the contract was awarded to Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, at the expense of Dutch builders such as Adema and the German firm Strobel, who had just installed an organ in the Bakenesserkerk in Haarlem. Due to the contract’s stipulating that the organ must be installed and fully playable within nine months, a completely new organ was out of the question. The organ is based therefore on a so-called orgue de tribune which Cavaillé-Coll had set up in his atelier as a demonstration instrument. The instrument was adapted appropriately and brought, by train, to Amsterdam. It arrived at the end of May 1875, and the first sounds were heard on the 23rd of August. The official inauguration took place on the 26th October of the same year, the opening concerts being performed by Alexandre Guilmant to enthusiastic receptions. Initially the organ was used intensively, and, on the 23rd of March 1876 the Paleis’s “Vereeniging tot Bevordering van de Orgelmuziek” (Foundation for the Promotion of Organ Music) organised a national competition, based on French models. The candidates were each required to perform Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in a minor BWV 543, and to improvise. In 1879, Jean-Baptiste de Pauw was appointed as the permanent organist of the Paleis, and in the subsequent years, famous Parisian organists such as Widor (1886), Vierne (1895) and Saint-Saëns (1897) performed concerts there.

Haarlem The organ’s initial success was short-lived however and, in the early years of the 20th century, it became more or less unused. The main reason for this was the opening, in 1888, of the Concertgebouw, which soon became the centre of musical life in the city, at the expense of the Paleis. After the devastating fire at the city’s Stadsschouwburg in 1890, the Paleis became Amsterdam’s main venue for theatrical productions, its use as a concert hall consigned to history. In 1895 its orchestra was disbanded, and with it went the post of the organist. The organ itself was put up for sale in 1915 and the first plans were made to take it to Haarlem. The Philharmonie, then known as the Gemeentelijke Concertzaal, was built in 1873 for functions and sports events. In order to accommodate the organ, a stage was built, and the hall was adapted to make it more suitable for musical performances. The organ was inaugurated in Haarlem in October 1924. Incidentally, the organ’s abandonment at its original home proved to be a stroke of luck; just five years after it was inaugurated in Haarlem the Paleis voor Volksvlijt in Amsterdam was destroyed by fire.

Restorations
The organ didn’t escape its moving home completely unscathed however. The aforementioned Dutch organ builder Adema had suggested that the organ’s action should be replaced using pneumatic cone chests. Cavaillé-Coll, who had died in 1899, had always rejected this system out of hand. Adema on the other hand felt that this German system would increase the organ’s potential. The conversion cost the organ its original key and stop action, windchests, and its original console. Initial reactions were in any case mixed, but this was more as a result of the hall’s acoustic than any deficiency of the instrument.
In 1939 the action was partly electrified, in response to the unreliability of the pneumatic cone chests. Predictably this proved futile, but didn’t stop the organ builder Vermeulen from Weert completing the electrification in 1961, incidentally the same year that Marcussen finished restoring the Müller organ in the Grote Kerk. The console was again replaced along with various stops according to the tastes of the time. This rebuilding was un-successful, and within a few decades the organ became almost completely unplayable.

Rehabilitation
The first plans to restore the organ to its original condition were made as early as 1980. However it wasn’t until 2003 that the contract was finally awarded to Flentrop Orgelbouw BV. Remarkably, the windchests, which had been lost during the various renovations, were discovered in various organs in the Netherlands, and were re-united with the Haarlem instrument. The remaining elements of the organ which had been lost were reconstructed.
During this last restoration, various organs by Cavaillé-Coll provided important information. These included instruments in the French cities Lisieux, Lyon and Caen, as well as that at the Parr Hall in Warrington. Nonetheless the Haarlem organ is an exception during the relevant period of Cavaillé-Coll’s activities, containing, as it does, two swell boxes and an unusual construction whereby the Positief is placed above the Récit. The ‘normal’ flue stops found on Cavaillé-Coll’s Récit divisions are in Haarlem placed on the Positief, and vice versa.
With the exception of some small problems relating to the climate in the hall (the action in particular sometimes makes strange cracking sounds, and the swell boxes refuse to close entirely) the organ is now in mint condition. The festive re-inauguration took place on 6 February 2006. In 2008 the organ will again be used in a competition, some 132 years after the competition in the Amsterdam Paleis, when it will feature during the second round of the famous International Improvisation Competition. The organ will once again be used for the function for which this organ type was conceived: the improvisatory creation of new music.

Peter Ouwerkerk - Translation Chris Bragg