My long-time friend, Edith Ho, formerly of the Church of the Advent in Boston, passed along this video of the recently-rebuilt organ at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. I would highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the world of organs and organists. Although the video is narrated in French by Olivier Latry, the titular organist, it is so totally worth seeing the view of the console from the organist’s perspective, as well as the inside of the organ case.

https://youtu.be/2FA5aI1i8pE

Even if you don’t have 52 minutes to watch the entire video, just seeing the first 10-15 minutes is worth it by itself. You can also see a performance by former Notre Dame organist, Pierre Cochereau, who by the way, played a concert at St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Honolulu in the early 1970s. Latry also plays snippets of “Cortège et litanie” by Marcel Dupré, which I studied with “le maitre” himself. (He uses the chimes in the opening “Cortège” and adds a bunch of extra pedal notes in the toccata portion of the piece.)

I was in Notre Dame Cathedral last summer and you can re-read the post I wrote, “All the Paris highlights in one day,” including hearing the postlude improvisation by Olivier Latry that day. I also found this picture of a man lighting the candles in the front of the church—how would you like to be an acolyte here?!

You can also read an interview with Philippe Lefebre, the organ’s caretaker, in this article in the Denver Post, “Notre Dame cathedral’s rebuilt pipe organ bears weight of history.”