Casavant Frères

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

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 unique for that time, 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.

Casavant organs are also found in 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 (while continuing to build electropneumatic action instruments as well) 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.

The sound and style of Casavant organs has varied throughout the company's history. The Casavant brothers themselves, Samuel and Claver Casavant, reflected mostly influences from contemporary France, but they traveled widely and visited many European instruments. They later brought in an Englishman, Stephen Stoot, under whose direction the tonal palette reflected additional influences from England. Later tonal directors, Lawrence Phelps and Gerhard Brunzema, contributed styles from the German "Organ Reform Movement." The most recent tonal directors, Jean-Louis Coignet and Jacquelin Rochette, are rooted in but not limited to the various French organ building traditions.

Some significant Casavant organs

* First United Methodist Church of Dallas, Texas, [http://www.firstchurchdallas.org/music_casavant.htm Casavant Opus 3828] [http://pipedreams.publicradio.org/gallery/southwest/texas/dallas_fumccasavant.shtml]
* Broadway Baptist Church [http://www.broadwaybc.org/worship/op3750/op3750.html] of Fort Worth, Texas, Casavant Opus 3750 with 129 stops and 10,615 pipes, considered to be Casavant's "magnum opus"
* Temple complex of the Community of Christ in Independence, Missouri, Casavant Opus 3700, a four-manual organ of 60 stops, 5,685 pipes [http://www.rlds.org/worship/organ.asp]
* Guadalupe Basilica in Mexico, 123 stops
* Victorian Arts Centre in Melbourne, Australia, 60 stops, tracker action
* Basilica of St. John the Baptist in St. John's, Newfoundland, 66 stops
* Chapel of Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, 66-stops— probably the only organ in the world which was built entirely suspended from the ceiling. (Built 1970. In 1972, the local Casavant representative installed an enclosed Choir division of 11 stops - also built by Casavant. See [http://www.casavant.ca/new_temp/anglais/History/reform/3079.pdf this PDF] on Casavant's web site for the original stoplist.)
* Notre-Dame de Montréal Basilica, 83 stops
* Saint-Nom-de-Jésus in Montreal, Quebec, 90 stops
* Saint James United Church in Montreal, 64 stops
* St Paul's Anglican Church in Toronto, Ontario 106 stops
* Royal York Hotel in Toronto, 107 stops
* Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, Providence, Rhode Island 6,616 pipes, 125 ranks, 73 stops, largest mechanical action organ in North America
* Emmanuel Church in Boston, Massachusetts 137 stops
* Metropolitan United Church, Toronto, 5 keyboards and 110 stops
* Holy Rosary Cathedral (Regina)
* Plymouth Congregation Church Lansing, Michigan 57 stops, 75 ranks
* Grace Lutheran Church State College, Pennsylvania 33 ranks and 2048 pipes
* The Detroit Institute of Arts Auditorium, (Detroit, Michigan) [http://www.dia.org/dft/]
* Edman Chapel in Wheaton College (Wheaton, IL)
* Bethesda Episcopal Church in Saratoga Springs, NY [http://www.bethesdachurch.org/music_organ.html]
* [http://sota.colostate.edu/facilities/music.html Recital Hall ] , Colorado State University, 2079 pipes, 34 stops
* University Hall, Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia
* University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA, Casavant Opus 3105 - 53 stops, 74 ranks

Recordings

There have been many recordings performed on Casavant Frères organs. Many recent recordings are listed here [http://www.casavant.ca/RE_1.html] .

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.

ee also

* Pipe organ
* List of Canadian companies

External links

* [http://www.casavant.ca/ Casavant Frères website]
* [http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=U1ARTU0000625 Canadian Encyclopedia]
* [http://www.histori.ca/minutes/minute.do?id=10167 Historica’s Heritage Minute video docudrama about Joseph Casavant.] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash_Player (Adobe Flash Player.)]