Located in St. Etienne Abbey, Marmoutier, Alsace, France. Its current disposition is three manuals and pedalboard with a total of 30 stops.
The contract between Abbot Anselme Moser and Andreas Silbermann was signed in 1707 and the new organ installed in 1710, though certain divisions remained still empty. The brothers Andreas and Gottfired Silbermann had worked together on it, but Gottfried had left Strasbourg for Saxony no long before. Since Andreas had workshopped in Paris, where he became acquainted with the French Classical organ building, the Marmoutier organ, like all of Andreas Silbermann’s, is a merge of the technical construction and pipe scaling of the Classical French organ, and the characteristic German voicing. In 1710 the organ comprised only two manuals (Haupwerk and Rückpositiv) and a single 16’ Subbas stop in the pedal.
In 1746 Johann Andreas Silbermann, Andreas’ son, enlarged the organ adding a Recit division (located in the Echo position), four stops in the pedal and a Cromhorne in the Positiv. In 1915, an extended German flat pedalboard was added and later the organ underwent transformations and denaturalisations until 1930. In 1951 the association “Friends of the Silbermann organ of Marmoutier was created upon initiative of Marcel Thomann and Albert Schweitzer, and in 1955 the organ was restored by Ernst Mülheisen and Alfred Kern from Alsace under the supervision of Albert Schweitzer. Their work must be considered a model of restoration. They made only two changes to the instrument, namely, the addition of two keys to the pedal, giving it a compass of C’-d’’, making it apt for Bach’s works; and a special stop action for the pedal flutes. Apart from these changes, the organ remains as it was after Johann Andreas completion in 1746. The chest, manual keyboards, action and pipes are all original. The Marmoutier organ is currently one of the most well-preserved Silbermann organs.
Contextual Historical Chronology
1706: Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) Decease on March 3rd.
1707: Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707) Decease on May 9th.
1708: Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Begins tenure as Court Organist in Weimar; Setting on of the Orgelbüchlein.
1711: Georg Frideric Handel (1685-1759) Premier of Rinaldo in London, first all-Italian Opera performed in England.
1713: Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713) Decease on January 8th.
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