Dear Sirs: Re. # 301, Grace Church, Winnipeg, 1907

This instrument became my property in 1955, and was erected in a music room built for it on my farm home in Kindersley, Saskatchewan, in 1963. In 1979 I moved it to a specially built room added to my house in Victoria, where it is in almost daily use by students and others.

Having had experience in voicing, tuning and construction, I have done this work myself. I scrapped the tubular console, added a 4th manual from Grace console to the 3 manual electric console I had previously bought from your firm, second hand. It was from # 224, built in 1905. I built a new case with mahogany panels in which I installed 80 stop knobs controlled by solid state combination action with 10 generals and 6 pistons to each division, which has proven very satisfactory. The original contact system and switches built by the craftsmen in 1905 are still in use, so well designed and carefully made were they! This must be a record after 83 years of use.

The Great of 1907 was destroyed by fire, and replaced by a new one in 1917. My experience has been, that the more elaborate construction of the 1917 chests was not an improvement on the simpler, earlier ones, which have given no trouble whatsoever. In fact, the 1907 Swell has never yet had a pouch fail. Only 4 have been replaced on the choir and a few on the Great, plus one in the primary action which was a difficult and delicate operation as anyone who has had to do it will attest.

The 1917 Great must have been built to please an English organist because it was much duller than the older Casavants, having a huge, leather lipped Open Diapason, a powerful 4' Flute and a loud Doppelflute, a 2-2/3 Mixture so soft it could only be used with the mild Gemshorn and added nothing to the chorus. Meanwhile this type of tone had fallen out of favor, and, since the pipes were well made of good materials I decided to revoice them. The big diapason had the leather removed and was put on the pedal at 8 and 4' pitches. The wooden flutes had the nicks removed and the windways reduced so that now they are far more useful. The Mixture was re-cast into a 2, 1-1/3,1' so that now we have a much more useful chorus. The Trumpet was cleaned and responded well to being brightened. It had been shut off by the Winnipeg tuners, the Blanchards, but I have never had any trouble keeping it in tune.

Meanwhile I had become interested in the French Classical composers, such as the Couperins, Balbastre and Daquin. But it was not possible to play them with anything like the registration called for on this organ. The reeds were bright enough, but we lacked mutations needed for this old music. There was an 8' stop labeled Dolcissimo of limited use, so it was removed, cut down and re-scaled as a 4' Principal in the Choir. The 4' Traverse Flute was placed in the vacancy left by the Dolcissimo, and a new top board was placed where the 4' Flute had been in front of the shutters, and a 2' Mixture placed thereon. The old Cornet mixture was on a large scaled chest with sliders for ease of tuning. I built stop actions to control these sliders and Voila! at small expense we had a Nazard, Tierce and Larigot! The stops necessary for the Cornet, five, is set on one of the pistons so is instantly available when needed for the old music.

The Choir is necessarily limited, having only six stops. It now consists of Diapason 8', Dulciana 8', Stopped Diapason 8' (replacing the Melodia, which was much too large for the division) Principal 4', Nazard 2-2/3 and Fifteenth, 2'.

Close to the Choir chest is the Solo chest, which I have not used because it is high pressure. I have been assured by competent technicians that it would be possible by means of tubes cut from the note channels of the existing choir chest to those of the solo chest to make the present choir primary the only one needed. This would give me seven more stops which could be used for such voices as Cromorne, Cymbal, more Mutations etc. in the Classic style. In order to do this, since this chest will now be on only 3-1/2-ins. pressure, I will need to order new valves and springs. Also the small metal plugs to hold the springs in place, as is modern practise in place of the old wooden strips nailed on for that purpose on the bottom of the valve boards. I can do this work easily myself, preferring to spend my money on new pipework.

I lack a good 16' Pedal reed, the present Bombarde is of huge scale with leathered shallots and was on the Solo 7" pressure. We have two similar examples here in Victoria, and they are of limited use. I realize a Clicquot Bombarde would be too much for an organ in less than a large church; for this reason and others I propose to visit St. Hyacinthe for consultation regarding this and other new pipes.

I was impressed with the grandeur of the Clicquot in Souvigny which I heard on record, and resolved to learn more of the French classic organ. I received the beautiful volume published by Glatter-Goetz of Clicqot's l'Art de Facteur d'Orgues, and decided to visit France and hear these precious instruments. I enrolled for a six week course at L'Institute de Touraine to improve my French, for as the genial organist of Poitiers, M. Jean-Albert Villard admonished - "Vous-etes en France, Parlez Francais!"

Unfortunately my visit was cut short after only 2 weeks by the news of the death of my father, but even so I played the "Sortie" after High Mass in the Basilique de St. Martin de Tours, a Cavaille-Coll with Barker lever and some reeds from the classic period; and spent a memorable morning with M. Villard at the incomparable Clicquot in Poitiers. I had only one Sunday in Paris, but visited, on foot, and heard the organ in Notre Dame, a short distance away another Mass at St. Gervais where is the Couperin organ, and in the afternoon I heard the Cavaille-Coll in Notre-Dame de la Lorette, a beautiful instrument.

I hope some day to meet M. Coignet and would like to time my visit to your factory when he is present, as I understand he commutes from Paris.

I am enclosing a list of valves required for the former Solo chest as mentioned earlier.

I am looking forward to visiting St. Hyacinthe. I used to know Mr. Stoot, Mr. Walcker, Mr. Bedard and Mr. Fontaine, the last three being voicers, as well as several others who worked there years ago and have now passed on.

Yours truly,

Stuart Kolbinson
Casavant Enthusiast!