Thursday night I had a very sound night’s sleep. After some breakfast it I took the bus through Paris back to St. Sulpice to take some formal photos of Vincent and to visit with him for a bit. After getting the keys to the organ loft we went up. Once we opened the gate up in the loft we set off the alarm! Well, I got my cell phone out and quickly called Daniel Roth – thoughts of attempting to

The next morning I said good bye to London and headed back to Paris. Ann Elise Smoot walked me back to the Clapham South underground station to prevent me from getting slightly lost, as I did the previous morning.  I made my train back to the Gare du Nord and was to meet Daniel Roth at St. Sulpice to make a trip I wanted to do the past two trips in Paris, going up the towers at the Cathedral of

Got up early today as I had to make the 9:10am Euro Star Train to London to visit with Ann Elise Smoot and James Vivian at the Temple Church. After getting slight lost trying to find the Breguet-Sabin Metro Stop I improvised and got on at Chemin Vert and made the connection to get to Gare du Nord and my train. It is a wonderful train ride, the trip under the English Channel went very quickly and

Day 8 – Tuesday May 9, 2006

 

Tuesday morning was not eventful as Chris and I both caught up on bookkeeping. That afternoon we drove to Cologne.  The Cathedral did not disappoint me at all. It was even bigger than I thought it would be. The ancient towers of Der Kölner Dom rivaled the modern skyscrapers for attention. It was a miracle that it survived World War II as the city was almost entirely

Day 7 – Monday May 8, 2006

 

On Monday I slept late at the hotel and Chris picked me up and we went back his home. I met his two young daughters, they are wonderful little children. After having some excellent cheeses (Cantal and Tomme de savoice), bread from Rouen and wonderful butter — not the stuff you get in the USA — we drove into Neuss to hear a romantic organ in St.Quirinus Catholic

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

Day 6 – Sunday May 7, 2006

 

I arose early in the morning and heard Mass at Notre-Dame Cathedral across from my hotel. The service was very simple, but I had the chance to listen to the Dupré house organ. Albert Dupré, the father of Marcel, had a small Cavaillé-Coll in his home that was given to the Cathedral after his death. It had a grand tone and filled the front of the Cathedral with sound.

Day 4 — Friday

 

Today, Daniel Roth arrived by train from Paris to record his new disc at St. Ouen. Stephen Tharp did not finish his disc last night and got up early today to record Lumiere from the Meditations on the Holy Spirit, but the organ was giving us some trouble. The organ builder repaired the faulty trackers, but as a result, Stephen missed his plane and now has to stay another night.

Day 3 — Thursday

 

The whole crew and I slept late today! I rose at noon and Chris took Stephen and me to lunch at the wonderful outdoor café Brasserie Paul right in front of our hotel.  Then we walked over to St. Ouen and I filmed a short clip of Stephen talking about his recording for Aeolus with the great Cavaille-Coll organ behind him. We added this to a clip of Stephen playing Repons pour

The second day in Rouen we set to work around 9:00 AM. After grabbing a quick goat cheese sandwich I walked over to St. Ouen to meet the organbuilder Denis LACORRE . I got the chance to climb around the organ and take some photos in this extremely important pipe organ. While Denis was tuning the organ, Chris Frommen and I set up some deflectors for the chamade. These can be seen in the photos of

After a late night flight to Paris from JFK in NYC I arrived around 7:20am in the morning Paris time or 1:20am NYC time. From there everyone on the plane was herded onto buses for the terminal. From there I got the RER into Paris and had some fun finding the Saint-Lazare station from where I was to get the train to Rouen. It was a 1 hour trip to Rouen, that was very pleasant. Checked into my