We have recently installed a new Casavant organ (May, 2002)
This report was written in the summer of 2000.

A Visit to Casavant Freres, Organ Builders,
St. Hyacinthe, Quebec

In mid-July, three members of the FLC Organ Task Force traveled to Quebec to visit Casavant Freres organ builders and confer with them on the tonal design and the facade design of the new FLC organ. Joe Hansen and Don Knuth flew from Chicago where they had attended the ELCA Worship Conference, and joined Jill Knuth in Dorval Airport, Montreal, about midnight, Thursday.

Jill writes: We expected it would take us an hour or so to drive from the airport to St. Hyacinthe, the town about 50 miles outside Montreal where Casavant is located. But we did not realize that the Champlain Bridge over the Saint Lawrence River was undergoing reconstruction, causing massive traffic jams in the middle of the night. It took us nearly two hours to cross the river and we did not arrive at our motel in St. Hyacinthe until 3:00 am.

After five hours of sleep, we met M. Rochette for breakfast, then toured the Casavant workshop. The company is one of the oldest and biggest pipe organ builders in North America. The variety of materials and skills that go into the construction of a organ is surprising. We visited the console workshop, th e chest-making workshop, the paint shop, the electronics shop, the foundry where hot metal is poured into sheets, the metal pipe-making shop, the wooden pipe-making shop, the machine shop, and several other work centers, each with their own equipment and tools. The finished pipes are voiced in the voicing room, then the whole organ is assembled in one of four very large, high assembly rooms. Finally it is disassembled, packed, and shipped.

The factory is housed in several old wooden buildings. Light floods into each workshop though rows of wooden casement windows. Each work bench is devoted to a specific task and outfitted with the special tools for that task. Every time I turned around, there was another picture waiting to be snapped. I took nearly 60 photos altogether, and have enough material for a small exhibit. A wall hung with rotary saw blades, a rack of wood clamps, rolls of tin to be cut into pipes, and the measures and patterns for the pipes, boxes of pipe parts, soldering stations splattered with bright silver, trimming machines littered with brass curls or wood shavings, precisely cut pieces of beautiful wood --- each image is an abstraction in itself, but also may illustrate a nearly forgotten hand skill.

Friday afternoon, M. Rochette drove us to the town of Boucherville to Holy Family Church. This was the first in a series of visits to old, ornate French Catholic churches to hear large Casavant organs. Don and Joe were comparing the subtle variations possible in a given style of pipe, so they could later tell M. Rochette they liked the oboe in that church better than the oboe in another church. I wandered about, enjoying the music while looking at stained glass, wall paintings, and lots of gilt carving.

Saturday morning, Joe, Don and I drove about two hours to the town of Levis, where Casavant had just completed the renovation of an old organ at Notre Dame Church. The young organist, Dany Wiseman, impressed us with a private concert and Don and Joe played a bit, too.

Levis is just across the Saint Lawrence River from Quebec City, so we took the 15 minute ferry ride to the picturesque ville perched on a hillside and dominated by the Chateau Frontenac. I'd been there many years ago as a teenager; it was Don and Joe's first visit. We ate crepes for lunch, and wandered through the park near the old city wall, where acrobats were practicing for a show later in the afternoon. We stepped into the Basilica of Notre Dame where a wedding was taking place. Quebec City is M. Rochette's home town, and he was once the organist at Notre Dame. We waited quietly at the back in order to hear the organ recessional. The dominant visual element was an ornate, brightly gilt baldachine over the altar.

After the wedding at Notre Dame, we proceeded to the Anglican Cathedral where another wedding had just ended. We didn't get to hear the organ in this church, but we admired the facade pipes elaborately painted in cream and chestnut.

Since the day was my 61st birthday, we celebrated with a nice supper Aux Ancien Canada, a restaurant offering historic local cuisine. I had pheasant legs in pork and beans, and Don tried the black pudding (blood sausage). Dessert featured maple syrup pie with cream. As we ferried back across the river, the sky was pink and blue and the lights in the receding city were just beginning to take effect, a fairy-tale ending to a beautiful day.

Sunday morning, we returned to Montreal, this time with no delay, over the Jacques Cartier Bridge. Our first stop was 10:00 o'clock French Mass at St. John the Baptist, an inner city church. The sanctuary seats 2000 and the organ is dramatic. But there were only about 50 worshippers. A very beautiful young man with a well-trained operatic voice performed as the (paid) cantor. He made no effort to include the congregation in the sung responses and there were no hymns. In spite of the splendid surroundings, the worship was impoverished compared to what we experience every week at First Lutheran. Ironically, a Spanish language Mass was going on at the same time in a chapel in the basement --- standing room only at that service.

A brief walk though the neighborhood revealed several vegetarian restaurants. We chose one for lunch which was tasty, but took a long time. After lunch, we drove though grand residential neighborhoods, to the top of Mount Royal for an overview of the city. Dominating the view is St. Joseph's Oratorio, a domed structure perched on a hillside. That was our next destination where we would attend a mid-afternoon organ concert. This is a famous church and a famous organ (the only one we heard not built by Casavant) which Joe knew by reputation and wanted to hear. Don and I had lived nearby 25 years ago when Don delivered a series of lectures at the University of Montreal. We recognized the residential hotel in which we had stayed.

The last event of the afternoon was another French Mass at the Basilica of Notre Dame in downtown Montreal. Here the interior was a rich confection of gold gothic spires backlit by blue neon. This Mass was well attended; many of the worshippers seemed to be tourists. The organist, Pierre Grandmaison, is a dramatic performer, and he spent an hour with us after the Mass, demonstrating the loudest and fastest pieces in his considerable repertoire of memorized music. The balcony shook with his playing.

This organ is unique in the arrangement of its chamber which is pierced by an arched vault that frames a stained glass window. If the chamber had been a solid mass, as in usually the case, the window would have been covered. Don and Joe entered the chamber on one side, climbed over the arch and came down on the other side. Huge 32 foot facade pipes have false mouths painted on the visible side, but real mouths hidden inside the chamber.

Sunday night was the only time we would not repeat. When we returned to our car after the Mass at Notre Dame, we discovered that Don's suitcase had been stolen. We'd forgotten to close one window, and the thief had apparently taken the first suitcase he laid his hands on. It could have been a lot worse: the rental car was undamaged, Joe and my luggage was untouched, and Don's suit, raincoat, briefcase, passport and air tickets were still in the car. The only thing the thief got was a suitcase full of dirty underwear and a bag of toiletries.

By the time we succeeded in finding our way to the motel near Dorval Airport, we were all very tired and hungry. Dinner in an Italian restaurant solved half the problem and a good night's sleep did the rest.

Monday, we made an attempt to hear the organ at Holy Name Church, but the organist was on vacation and there was no one there who had the right keys. We spent the rest of the day as tourists in Montreal, seeing the French Impressionist Exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, walking and shopping. We capped the day with a gourmet supper at the vegetarian buffet, Commercal.

Our trip to Canada was a success. Joe and Don were able to work though most of the details of the tonal design of our new church organ, and I spent an hour with the designer finalizing the facade. We returned to California with the feeling that we had done the right thing in signing a contract with Casavant Freres; the company, and especially the tonal designer, M. Rochette who has been our primary contact, have a great deal of integrity. They will not build an organ that is poorly designed or constructed.