Le Grand Orgue Van den Heuvel (1989)

The organ of Saint-Eustache is the only one in a French church a church which can be played on a console with five manuals and a pedalboard placed in the center of the great nave. Thus the audience can actually see the organist playing, as one sees the pianist in a concert hall, whilst looking up to admire the sumptuous case by Baltard. Moreover, the organ can easily dialogue side by side with other instruments or an orchestra. Jean Guillou's compositions for choir and organ, and his works for piano, organ and percussions, were thus performed in this manner

The Van den Heuvel organ is entirely new, except for the case with its front pipes (Montre) and some old pipework which was re-used (including the 8' Basset horn presented by the famous English organ builder Henry Willis to Joseph Bonnet, organist of Saint-Eustache from 1906 to 1943).

The instrument counts five manual keyboards of 61 notes and a 32 note pedalboard. Its specification offers a sound pallet of incomparable richness.

The Positif has 18 stops, the Grand-Orgue 16 stops, the Récit 17 stops, the Grand-Chœur 19 stops, the Solo 11 stops and the Pedal board 20 stops, which gives a total of 101 stops with a total of 147 ranks and 8.000 pipes.

Among the rare characteristics of this instrument, one can notice

• The grand 32' plein-jeu of the Grand-Orgue,
• Harmonic series reaching up to the ninth: 32' on the Pedal (Théorbe: 4 4/7, 3 5/9), 16' on the Grand-Chœur, 8' on the Solo (Harmonic: 1 1/3, 1 1/7, 8/9), and until the seventh, with an 8', on the Positif, ·
• The Plein-Jeu Harmonique 2-8 , of the Grand-Chœur, ·
• The 32' reeds division of the Récit, ·
• The Tubas 16, 8, 4, of the Grand-Chœur, ·
• The 5 ranks of chamades, of the Solo, pneumatic action with 6 increasing wind pressures.

One also notes, among the exceptional colours, the series of harmonic flutes (8, 4, 2 2/3, 2, 1 3/5, 1) of the Solo, which is an innovation of Jean Guillou's which he had introduced with great success in the organs of the Chant d'Oiseau in Brussels and Zurich's Tonhalle. It was also Jean Guillou who had the idea to add a Sesquialtera to the Grand-Orgue: this stop provides many possibilities, both as a solo stop as well as in combination with the mixtures

The 32' Contre-Bombarde deserves a special mention. This stop was not planned, but considering that the existing Trombone 32 (with its rather modest wood resonators) was not sufficient for an organ of this size, the Van den Heuvel brothers made a gift of this 32' Contre-Bombarde to the city of Paris. The Saint-Eustache's organ thus became the only organ in the world to have three sets of 32' pedal reeds.

The Van den Heuvel organ has two consoles of 5 manuals and pedal; the main one, employs mechanical action (Barker machines), the other in the nave, mobile, brings into play electronic transmission. These consoles are equipped with many features which enhance the organ's abilities.

(based on Jean-Louis Coignet)