Sonus Paradisi – Chapelet Spanish Collection

The two Spanish instruments featured in this sample set are from the Francis Chapelet collection in Montpont-Menesterol. Both organs are housed in the Auditorium, which Chapelet built in the garden of his home.

The green-painted organ comes from the former monastery of Mondoñedo in Galicia. It was built by an unknown organ builder in the late 17th century. It was restored by Pierre Chéron in 1977. All manual registers are distributed between middle C and C-sharp. The pedal is permanently linked to the lowest octave of the manual. The instrument has a short octave, which was converted to chromatic in the sample set. Hauptwerk software can emulate a short octave if needed.

The brown-fronted organ was rescued by Francis Chapelet from a ruined church in Castile. Chapelet had purchased the organ, and a week after it was removed, the church vault collapsed. It was an empty organ case—only the front pipes and one of the wind boxes remained. The front carving bears the date 1736. Gerhard Grenzing restored the instrument in 1978 and enlarged it to expand its repertoire. The organ has two manuals with a chromatic compass and a full pedalboard with 30 keys.

The temperament found during recording was similar to Werckmeister III.

Since both instruments are located in the same room, it seemed appealing to combine them into a single sample set. This allows for duet performances from a single console, with the two lower manuals serving the Castilian organ and the third keyboard for the Galician organ. 

For example, one could route the Castilian organ to the speakers located on the left, and the Galician organ to the speakers located on the right (or use the front and rear speakers in a similar manner), simulating the original arrangement of the instruments on opposite walls of the hall. The pedal can be controlled from a single pedal unit, especially since the Galician organ does not have separate pedal stops.

To allow switching between the organs for performance by two choirs, a pedal coupler was added to the Galician organ. When playing only the Castilian instrument, the pedal coupler on the Galician organ should be disconnected so that the Galician organ’s stops are not heard in the pedal unit.