Saint-Sulpice organ, Daniel Roth plays Ad Nos, Liszt (audition 22 September 2013)

Since a recording of Ad nos is still available (Motette, 1993), I found it interesting to post extracts of a video in which one could also hear what happens at the console. “On 29 October 1852, Franz Liszt’s great Fantasy & Fugue on the chorale ‘Ad nos, ad salutarem undam’ was premiered. In this work, about thirty minutes long, the registrations move from large ensembles to the intimate colours of solo stops, flutes, Hautbois, etc. Obviously, such manoeuvres turn out to be rather complex, or almost impossible, on an instrument with a hundred stops. Cavaillé-Coll therefore invented a new, more flexible stop-preparation system for the Saint-Sulpice organ: the two-way stop action system (tirage de jeux à double effet – a mechanical system using a Barker machine). This system allows a means of preparing foundation stops in advance, in addition to the jeux de combinaison. The stops of a first registration are activated when the drawknobs corresponding to the various divisions (Pedal, R&