Great organ of Nancy Cathedral

The great organ of the cathedral of Nancy was begun in 1756. It is placed on a gallery above the central doorway of the Notre-Dame-de-l'Annonciation cathedral in Nancy.

The great organ was originally built by Nicolas Dupont, the major organ builder in Lorraine during the 18th century, who also famously built the great organs of Toul cathedral and Verdun cathedral, among others. His work at Nancy is his largest. At that time it was the biggest organ in the Duché de Lorraine, a duchy which remained independent from France until 1766. Work began in 1756 and was finished in 1763. At that time, the newly built church was not yet a cathedral but officially a primatiale. The creation of a bigger organ in Nancy (44 stops) compared to the one in the Toul cathedral can be seen as a rivalry between the two cities, as Nancy claimed the become the center of the episcopacy.

The organ’s monumental 16-foot case was probably designed by Jean-Nicolas Jennesson and is truly remarkable and typical of its time. Dupont also contributed to its conception as the case can be easily compared to his prior work at Toul cathedral, and was later used as a model for the construction of the Verdun great organ.

The case occupies all the organ gallery's width. A rare elegance as well as a sumptuous balance are achieved through the two central 16-foot turrets that surround the convex central turret, overlooked by carved-wood garlands and a central heraldry.

Nicolas Dupont looked after the organ until he eventually died in 1781 and the task passed to his pupil Jean-François Vautrin who intervened in 1788 with minor repairs, included adding a stop of grosse caisse (i.e. bass drum).

The French Revolution, starting in 1789, surprisingly did not have any consequence on the instrument thanks to the appointed organist Michelot « homme de cœur et de bonté » (i.e. : kind and heart-full man). He is said to have played Revolutionary anthems, and thus got the great organ saved. Vautrin again repaired the instrument in 1808 : keyboards were extended from D⁵ to F⁵ ; 4 stops were added to the Swell, several stops modifications were operated to the Great and Choir ; last but not least, two Bombarde stops were added  : one of 16’, and one of 32’. It is significiant that this was the first Bombarde 32’ stop ever built in France, and it needed some extra modifications to the organ in order to install it.

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