In message <[log in to unmask]>, Julian Rhodes
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>Since the 1960's the German builder Gerhard Schmid, who works in
>Kaufbeuren, Bavaria, has built several 5 manual instruments which, on
>paper at least, are interestingly different.  They include very well
>developed mutation and reed choruses.
>During 1998-95 he rebuilt the organ at Dijon Cathedral to a basically
>French Classical scheme, but also including a more romantic Recit with 5
>strings - 16, 8, 8, 8 celeste, 4.  5 manuals, 73 stops in total.
>
>Has anyone heard any of his instruments?  Do they sound as good as they
>look on paper?
 
I have heard a number of extremely uncomplimentary assessments - I
decline to divulge the sources!  Certainly this instrument raised a
storm of protest from some quarters in France, with figures as eminent
as Michel Chapuis (who lives not far away in Dole, home of another 5
manual organ by Riepp) slating the concepts behind it in the press.
 
I have not heard the organ.  But I have seen it, and my chief question
was why a building as modest as Dijon Cathedral needed such a vast
instrument.
--
Mark Purcell