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"A member of the German orgelforum.info just posted excerpts from Anthony Hammond’s book on Cochereau. It appears that, after C-C’s latest work, the organ never actually reached a state that could have been called finished, and that the Cochereau console was never more than a perpetuated interim solution. If there ever was a state that could claim to have some integrity, it was the state from 1991 on -- except for the blatant computer problems, the organ was fully functional and apparently musically sound, if only from impost level on up. If I compare recordings of before and after 1991, it is, to my ears, obvious that the rebuild (re-) introduced much of the C-C sonorities that the organ sadly lacked during the decades before. That being said, a reconstruction of the C-C incarnation of the organ would apparently be hypothetical, as the pipework and mechanism have undergone so may alterations. \n  \nI don’t know if I would go as far as to call the resonance a whim. I thought Cochereau’s small pedal division -- which is to form the core of the new resonance -- was much more whimsical than a full-fledged, expressive manual division, as it is planned now, would be. I also stand by my opinion that the current titulaires keep proving the usefulness of the mutations every single day. Let’s not forget that it was Cavaillé-Coll's idea in the first place that extensive use of mutations was the way to overcome the challenges of the extreme acoustics. Apparently he did not only think that they would work there, but that the organ could only be successful with the mutations, and would fail without them. \n  \nWhat I do not know as well is where they will put the box (or boxes) for that new expressive division. I also don’t get it why anyone could want a console that looks like a toy kitchen, with its light-brown stop handles against a background of identical colour. But I most certainly know that the current titulaires did prove that they do not act on whims, and that their musical judgement is sound (so to speak). \n  \nBest, \nFriedrich "
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