After the revolution - 19th century

The 19th century: an exciting era in Paris!

During the first decades of the 19th century, the organ building activities in Paris are scars. The town and its churches are still recovering from all the devastations endured during the revolution. In the first three decades, it is mainly Dallery who performs maintenance works on some organs and who even builds a new organ (for the chapel of the Sorbonne, 1825). Dallery and this organ can be seen as the last representatives of the French classical organ building era. From 1830 onwards, organ building activities do increase slowly, with Daublaine-Callinet in the lead in the third decade and Cavaillé-Coll taking the lead in the rest of this century, starting a new and exciting chapter in the Parisian organ history. In the second half of the 19th century (and continuing in the first decade of the 20th century), the organ building reaches a unprecedented booming era in Paris, with Cavaillé-Colll being by far the market leader, and Merklin being his main competitor. The table on the right side shows the main organ builders of the 19th century and the numbers of organs they built or restored and/or renovated. This table shows clearly the dominance of Cavaillé-Coll, in partiocular with regard to newly built organs.

The main builders

of the 19th century

Abbey Barker Cavaillé-Coll Dallery Callinet/Daublaine/Ducroquet Merklin Somer Stoltz Suret Other

19th century - 20th century - 21th century