To this day, the name Cavaillé-Coll continues to electrify the organ world that celebrated the 100th anniversary of his death in 1999. To numerous French composers in the second half of the 19th century, his organs provided inspiration and the inherent possibility to realize a new symphonic compositional style. The A. Cavaillé-Coll organ at St. Bernhard, the very first in Germany, was built in 1876/77 for a Parisian parish, but then put up in Cavaillé-Coll's workshop for testing of new techniques and as a show and demonstration instrument. The lavish design as well as the complicated mechanism of the organ show a level of organ build-ing that Cavaillé-Coll applied at St. Ouen in Rouen (1890), a time when the organ was probably completed. After a large-scale restoration by the French organ company Claude Berger, Clermont d'Hérlaut, together with master organ builder Jean-Pierre Swiderski, Paris, the organ was consecrated on December 17, 1999 in Mainz.
The internationally renowned organ artist Daniel Roth, titular organist of the great A. Cavaillé-Coll organ at St. Sulpice in Paris, played the solemn service for the consecration and the consecration concert. The wonderful selection of compositions on this CD was recorded a few nights earlier. The Frankfurter Rundschau wrote about the recording: On this CD the instrument sounds in the finest way: Bach’s and Mendelssohn's polyphony in marvellous legato transparency; striking and soft French symphonic organ compositions; virtuoso, sparkling and glittering sequences as a result of the combination of the organ pipes and the flute in the compositions of Saint-Saëns, Chaminade and Hüe!

Alexandre Pierre François Boëly: Fantaisie et fugue in B-Dur
Camille Saint-Saëns: Romance op. 37 für Flöte und Orgel
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Fuge in e-Moll
Johann Sebastian Bach: Phantasie und Fuge in a-Moll BWV 904
Max Reger: Melodia
Cécile Chaminade: Concertino pour flûte et orgue D-Dur op. 107
César Franck: Pastorale
Georges Hüe: Fantaisie für Flöte und Orgel
Charles-Marie Widor: Méditation
Louis Vierne: Carillon de Longpont
Daniel Roth: Improvisation über Te Deum Laudamus