3 manuals and pedal, french romantic in the style of A. Cavaillé-Coll, 48 stops, built 2006-2011 (Orgelmanufaktur Vleugels)

The Castle Church in Chemnitz is one of the oldest and historically most important buildings in the city of Chemnitz. It was built in the 16th century as a three-nave hall church in late Gothic style. After the dissolution of the associated Benedictine monastery, the church was used for various secular purposes and was not consecrated as a church again until the end of the 19th century. The organ installed at that time, which was stylistically oriented towards the organs of Gottfried Silbermann, was no longer worth preserving after various reconstruction measures, so that in 2003 it was decided to build a new organ.

The new organ was to stylistically represent a type of organ that did not yet exist in the wider area and it was decided to build an organ that would be based on the principles and sound of the organs of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. The contract for the construction of this new organ was awarded to the renowned organ manufacturer Vleugels from Hardheim. The organ was to be built in three stages, although there were further delays due to problems with renovation work in the church. In 2011, the organ was finally completed and consecrated.

It is a three-manual instrument with 48 stops, whose disposition is based on organs of comparable size by Cavaillé-Coll. It is important to note that this orientation is not limited to the stop names, but that the scales, wall thicknesses, pipe material, voicing, wind chests and wind guides, equalizing bellows, etc. correspond to Cavaillé-Coll's execution practice. A fortunate circumstance was the order for the restoration of one of the most important organs in Spain, namely the completely preserved organ by A. Cavaillé-Coll from the years 1883/84 in the church of the Franciscan monastery in Madrid (II/26), restoration from 2006 - 2009. Here the company Vleugels was able to deepen its knowledge of pipe construction, windchest design, etc. in the organs of Cavaillé-Coll and compare it with the original preserved historical material. The installation of an original Cavaillé-Coll Barker machine for the Hauptwerk is probably unique in Germany. The result is an instrument that is excellently suited for French Romantic literature, but can also convincingly reproduce other styles.

The console design combines historical and modern requirements for the operation of an organ in an exemplary manner. On the one hand, the organ can be registered with traditional "Appel d'anches" for the reed and aliquot stops that were common at the time of Cavaillé-Coll. The corresponding stops are marked with red lettering, as was customary at the time, and are located on the right side of the console. On the other hand, however, the console can also be switched to use a modern registration sequencer. In this case, the Appel switches have no function and a bar with the pistons for the sequencer appears under the first manual.  The combination of historical and modern registration practice is probably unique in this form.

In addition to the tonal design, the instrument shall also set visual accents. The organ was to be designed as a slender and architecturally attractive sculpture. The contract for the design was awarded to the artist Jacques Gassmann. His colorful designs are intended to make the special function of organ music and its religious symbolic power within the Christian liturgy visible again by means of contemporary art and to combine instrument and architecture into a meaningful work of art.

Disposition

Grand Orgue (C-a''')
Montre 16'
Montre 8'
Violoncelle 8'
Flûte Harmonique 8'
Bourdon 8'
Prestant 4'
Flûte 4'
Quinte 2 2/3'
Doublette 2'
Fourniture 5 rangs
Bombarde 16'
Trompette 8'
Clairon 4'

Positif (C-a''', schwellbar)
Montre 8'
Salicional 8'
Unda maris 8'
Bourdon 8'
Prestant 4'
Flûte douce 4'
Nasard 2 2/3'
Flageolet 2'
Tierce 1 3/5'
Piccolo 1'
Carillon 3 rangs' (Gruppenzug)
Trompette 8'
Clarinette 8'

Récit (C-a''', schwellbar)
Quintaton 16'
Viole de Gambe 8'
Voix Céleste 8'
Flûte Traversiere 8'
Bourdon 8'
Viole d'amour 4'
Flûte octaviante 4'
Voix Humaine 8'
Ovctavin 2'
Cornet 3 rangs
Trompette Harmonique 8'
Basson et Hautbois 8'
Clairon 4'

Pedal (C-f')
Contrebasse 16'
Soubasse 16'
Violoncelle 8'
Basse 8'
Flûte 4'
Quinte 10 2/3'
Bombarde 16'
Trompette 8'
Clairon 4'
Contrebombarde 32' (virtual stop added to sampleset)

EXTRAS
Carillon (Glockenspiel, von f0-f'')
Effet d'Orage
Imber
Timbale
Rossignol
Étoile tournante (Zimbelstern)
Crayon

Couplers:
Tir G.O. (P/I), Tir. Pos (P/II), Tir. Rec (P/III), Ac. G.O. Pos (I/II), Ac. G.O. Rec (I/III),
Ac. Pos Rec (II/III),
Oc. G. G.O. (I/I 16'), Oc. G.O. Rec (I/III 16')

 

The organ was recorded in 2022 using high-quality microphones in multi-channel technique. One pair of microphones was positioned at the height of the organ prospect and a short distance away from the organ. These microphones provide a high percentage of direct sound, and the organ sounds very clear as a result. In the sample set, these channels are labeled "Direct." The second pair was placed in an ideal listener position. Here direct sound and reverb are well balanced and the resulting sound is that of a concert recording. These channels are labelled "Middle" in the sample set. Finally a third pair was set up further away from the organ, which emphasizes the reverb part of the sound. In the sample set, these channels are labeled "Ambient".

For optimal results, at least three release layers (staccato, portato and long notes) were recorded for each pipe. The blower noise as well as the tremulant  noises were also recorded. Keyboard and stop action noises are very quiet on the original organ and therefore recording these was deemed to be meaningless.

The recordings were made in 24bit/96kHz without any filtering. The processing of the samples was done with our self-developed processing tools, with special mention of our special noise removal process. This is optimized for the characteristics of organ pipe tones and allows for an unprecedented quality of noise removal without affecting the sound characteristics.

The sample set faithfully reproduces the organ with its features in Hauptwerk. It has some special features, which are explained below:

Surround:
The set contains "direct", "middle", and "ambient" samples. Ideally, these should be routed through separate pairs of speakers to get the best effect. Using the sliders on the Controls page the levels can be adjusted separately.  

Contrebombarde 32':
A Contrebombarde stop was added to the virtual organ, transposing the lower octave of the Bombarde 16'. From c0 the normal bombarde stop is sounded, the virtual contrebombarde is a pure extension stop.

POS Carillon 3 rangs:
The Carillon stop in the Positif is a group stop. Here the Nasard, Tierce and Piccolo stops are operated together.

Tremulant:
The organ has two tremulants, "Tremblant lent" and "Tremblant fort". In the original organ, both tremulants act on the three manuals simultaneously, but only from c1 upwards. This is due to the fact that both tremulants are built as channel tremulants acting on the treble windchest common to all manuals. In the sample set, this has been changed so that the tremulants can be switched separately for each manual. Since the "Tremblant fort" did not have any effect in the Récit, but only led to a fluttering of the pipe sound, this tremulant was omitted in the sample set. The sample set uses separate tremulant samples, i.e. every pipe in the manuals (from c1) is also sampled with both tremulants. This method provides the best possible natural tremulant sound for organs with a lot of reverb. However, it also has disadvantages: First, the vibrations of the individual pipes are not synchronous, each vibrates independently, and second, the speed or depth of the tremulant cannot be subsequently adjusted.

Random Detuning:
The random detuning built into Haupt­werk cannot be used for this set, as Hauptwerk still does not ensure that related front and rear samples are tuned synchronously. The result is usually not very pleasing. Therefore, the correspon­ding parameters in the sampleset are set to 0, so that Hauptwerk's "random detuning" setting has no effect. Instead, the sampleset contains its own pseudo-random detuning. Here the degree of detuning can be adjusted with the sliders on the Controls page, the values are randomly determined for each pipe, but unchangeably set in the definition file. The adjustment is done separately for reed and labial stops.

Effect stops:
The organ has several effect stops. Zimbelstern (Étoile Tournante), Nightingale (Rossignol), and Rain (Imber) are selected by drawstops labeled in blue. The thunder effect (Effet d'Orage) can be controlled by a drawstop (continuous) as well as by a foot piston (not detenting). The nine lowest notes in the Montre 16' of the Grand Orgue are sounded. The timpani (timbale) is operated by a foot piston only.    

Registration:
As with the real organ, the reed and aliquot stops ("Combinaisons") can be switched on or off by Appel foot levers. These foot levers are preset to "on" in the sample set, so that all stops can be used when the organ is loaded for the first time. You can then register the organ with the sequencer included in Hauptwerk without using the Appel levers. But you can also do without the sequencer and register the organ historically correct using the Appel levers.

Virtual Console:
The virtual console consists of different screen pages optimized for touch screen operation. All screen pages are created in very high native resolution, so that the maximum resolution of the monitor can be fully used even with high-resolution screens. The following screen pages are available:

Console
This page is not intended to operate the sample set, but to give the organist an impression of the real console. The lettering is difficult to read on this page. This screen page is ideal for the MIDI assignment of the keyboards.

Stops page
This contains all controls except for the keyboards and pedal. Great care has been taken to ensure that the page is very legible. This screen page is ideal for operating the sample set with a single touch screen. The arrangement of the stops corresponds to the original.

Stop jambs (left/right)
The stop panels are designed for use with two touch screens, so that the left and right pages can be displayed respectively.

Controls
This page is used to adjust various settings. These are the balance between the recording channels, the random tuning setting, and the volume of the wind noise. The volume of the noise is preset (about 70%) to correspond to the actual volume. The maximum position of the control corresponds to +3dB. All settings on the Controls page are automatically saved and restored the next time the sample set is loaded.

The sample set requires a powerful Windows or Apple Mac OS computer with a current 64-bit operating system and the Hauptwerk software (Advanced Edition from version 5.0). For optimal results, a sufficiently powerful CPU (e.g. modern quad-core CPU) and enough main memory (RAM) are crucial. The following table shows the memory requirements in GB for the samples with different loading options:

	compressed	uncompressed
16 bit	17 GB	31 GB
20 bit	31 GB	>64 GB
24 bit	33 GB	>64 GB

The compression of the samples used by Hauptwerk is lossless, i.e. loading with the option "compressed" does not cause any loss of quality. However, a bit more CPU power is needed when playing the set. The best quality is achieved when loading with 24-bit resolution, but with minor losses the resolution of 16-bit can also be chosen. Since this can be set individually for each register in Hauptwerk, it is possible to adjust the loading options individually to the available main memory.

Approximately 35 GB of free space on the hard disk is required for the installation of the sample set.

Lizence conditions
Here you can view the licence conditions for our sample sets.

Installation
The sample set is delivered exclusively as a download (approx. 33 GB). The download consists of several files, which together form a splitted archive. For installation in Hauptwerk, these files must all be located together in one directory. Then select the file "...part1.rar" for the installation. Hauptwerk will automatically install the complete set in one go. Detailed installation instructions for your Hauptwerk version can be found in the Hauptwerk Main User Guide. You can access it from the Help menu in Hauptwerk.

During the installation you will be shown the license agreement, which you can also find in this booklet. You can only proceed with the installation if you accept the license agreement.

This sample set is protected by the iLok system. A valid license for the sample set is required to install and play the organ. For this purpose you will receive an activation code by mail after purchasing the set. The mail also contains the instructions for activating the license. Only after activating the license in the iLok License Manager the sampleset can be installed.

 

This beautiful organ was featured in a virtual concert on Richard McVeighs "Beauty in Sound" channel on Youtube. Enjoy a mix of an organ recital and hymns played live on the Vleugels sample set here!

You can find a number of pieces recorded with this sampleset on the Contrebombarde website.

Here is a link to a playlist featuring this organ.

 

This sample set can only be used with an activated licence and the download contains the full version. You can get a free activation code for a 14-day trial period from us on request.

Please refer to our downloads page to download the trial version or the full version for Hauptwerk version V and above.