"I'm going to revive the organ with my three colleagues, simply because the organ has been silent for more than five years", explains composer Thierry Escaich, appointed this year as the 4th principal organist at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. On 7 December, he will ‘reawaken’ the cathedral's great organ, which was dismantled and restored after the fire.
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00:00I'm going to proceed to the organ's awakening with my three colleagues, simply because the organ has been killed for more than five years.
00:28The organ has been disassembled, the pipes have been put back together, it has been cleaned, it has been harmonized.
00:41And now it's going to come back to life, so we're going to have to make this new organ hear what's left of it.
00:49Because it's coming back to life, and that's what we're going to do with this ritual of the organ's awakening.
00:58The organ's awakening
01:12So it's going to be at the beginning of this great ceremony, because a organ is often said to be the soul of the Church.
01:21It will be at least as beautiful as before, because it has been cleaned, quite simply.
01:26You know, this organ, in a certain way, the pipes are made of tin and lead, a mixture of tin and lead.
01:32One could imagine that a part of the lead or tin could have melted, which was not the case.
01:37But of course, there was a lot of dust, sweat, everything you want.
01:43It has been cleared, so of course it will shine even more than before in the cathedral.
01:51The organ's awakening