Implementation of the Aristide Cavaillé-Coll’s Vatican project in Poland

Particular attention should be pay on the project from 1875 of monumental organ for the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome made by the great French visionary of the symphonic organ, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll (1811-1899). This 124-stops colossus was to crown the work of Cavaillé-Coll and was “to complement the artistic achievements of the greatest masters of architecture, sculpture and painting, because music, the most religious of fine arts, did not have a worthy monument in this place” . Unfortunately, this project has never been implemented at its destination. However, at the beginning of the 21st century, around 130 years after the idea came into being, in the small village of Lichen Stary, located in the geographical center of Poland, in the largest Catholic temple of the country, the vision of Cavaillé-Coll materialized. In the years 2002-2007, the Polish company „Zaklady Organowe Zych” according to the concept of prof. Andrzej Chorosinski reproduced the sound of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll's organ in a monumental instrumentarium with 157 stops managed by a six-manual console. This article describes in detail the design of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll's organ for the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome, completed organ of the Basilica of Our Lady of Lichen in Poland and a comparative analysis of these two sound concepts.