Day five France
 
Day 5 – Saturday May 6, 2006 This was night 4 of recording in the magnificent gothic church. I don’t know how I could go back to recording organs without the massive acoustics that are as important to the sound of the organ as soundboards are to pianos. We all met at St. Ouen around noon that day and Daniel Roth recorded a short video for me like Stephen, which I combined with video from the night before of him playing the crescendo from Cathédrales by Vierne. The church is normally closed to the public from noon till 2pm, so Daniel Roth recorded several more pieces, one that was particularly beautiful by Nadia Boulangaer. After that I took the group out to a wonderful lunch at Brasserie Paul. At lunch I ordered a steak and Denis Lacorre ordered a salad with 4 different cheeses from Normandy. I commented to him how good it looked when it came to the table and he asked me if I wanted to trade my steak for his cheese and I immediately said YES! Daniel Roth, Chris Frommen, Denis Lacorre, Henry Decaens and I had a wonderful lunch. I spent the afternoon walking around Rouen for one last day and enjoyed the city and took more photographs. I had to sample some of the tarts in the pastry shops – yes more than one – it they are nothing like anything you would get in New York City. I met Denis Lacorre to took photos inside of the organ for my CD booklet. The swell boxes are very shallow and the walls are very thick – thus very effective. The pipe work is all in very good condition. It is amazing when you think the organ has never really been restored. After the church was closed for the evening, we took some photos of Daniel Roth for the CD booklet and then started to record again. He finished the remaining works very quickly and then we had some improvisations to record for a narrated tour of the stops and ensembles similar to what was done with Thomas Murray for his CD at Woolsey Hall at Yale University. Daniel Roth and I spent some time writing out a script in the ancient sacristy at St.Ouen, after that we recorded Daniel Roth reading the script in the Nave of the church in surround sound. This narrated tour will only fit on the SACD layer, so those people who just have CD players will only be able to hear the 70 minute recital CD but not the stop demonstration. Then we were done and it wasn’t even 11pm. Daniel Roth came down to the sacristy and listened to the surround sound on five Genelec 8020 speakers and a subwoofer Genelec 7050 and Daniel Roth was overwhelmed by the sound and quality of Chris Frommen’s recording. Earlier in the evening I had walked across the street to buy some excellent camembert from the “local convenience store” – like a 711 - across from the church for a post recording celebration. After Daniel gave his full blessing to everything he heard, Chris Frommen then broke out at bottle of Saint-Emillion wine which thrilled all of us, especially Daniel Roth. We all enjoyed the wine and cheese and went to bed early that evening as the next day Daniel Roth had to take the train to Paris to play Mass at St. Sulpice and Chris and I had to pack up a tremendous amount of equipment. Well, Chris, Denis and I decided we had to grab one more beer and exchange photos on our laptops of Skinner and Cavaillé-Coll organs. I think Denis is going to be buying a Skinner Tuba replication from A. R Schopps Son’s, Inc shortly! What a recording! What a pipe organ! And I am interesting the French in Ernest Skinner! Joe Vitacco
Recording St. Ouen & St. Sulpice
Saturday May 6, 2006