Aristide Cavaill-Coll

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(born Feb. 4, 1811, Montpellier, Francedied Oct. 13, 1899, Paris) French organ builder. He settled in Paris in 1833 at Gioacchino Rossini's suggestion and with his brother and father built almost 500 organs in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and elsewhere, including those in the Paris churches of Notre-Dame, La Madeleine, Ste. Clotilde, and La Trinit. With the goal of achieving an orchestral richness and variety of timbre, he introduced countless innovations; he is regarded as the creator of the French Romantic organ (which had great influence elsewhere as well), and composers such as Csar Franck, Camille Saint-Sans, and Olivier Messiaen wrote particularly with the Cavaill-Coll sound in mind.

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Aristide Cavaillé-Coll

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(b Montpellier, 4 Feb 1811; d Paris, 13 Oct 1899). French organ builder. Of an established family of organ builders, he studied in Paris (1833), settling there with his father and brother and building his first organ at Notre Dame de Lorette (1838). He built nearly 500, among them those at La Madeleine, Ste Clotilde, Notre Dame, La Trinité and the Trocadéro (all now altered) and those at St Denis Abbey (1840), Bayeux Cathedral (1861) and Orléans Cathedral (1875) (all in their original state). He remained faithful to tracker action, took care over the wind supply and, by his disposition of elements and use of pedals to control the couplers, swell-boxes and reeds, introduced unprecedented flexibility in volume and expressiveness. Adding to the classical French organ overblown flutes, the Spanish swell-box and chamade Trumpets and the German string stops, he created the French Romantic instrument, which inspired the greatest French organ composers from Franck to Messiaen.