Instruments: New Voice for Chartres

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After puffing up 88 spiraling stone steps, Marcel Dupré, the greatest organist in France, sat down at the 500-year-old organ, a magnificent work of art whose 2,270 fluted pipes pyramid majestically into the vaulted heights of Chartres Cathedral. It was to be his first recital in that majestic shrine, an hour to remember. But as Dupré launched into Bach's Toccata and Fugue in G Minor, the organ balked and choked off a high note. The organist winced, but forged on, muttering "lamentable, lamentable."

That was in 1952, and the citizens of Chartres have not forgotten the incident, for Dupré has never returned and the organ has since become a cause of national embarrassment. "Every Sunday," grieves the cathedral's permanent organist, Marcel Ruello, "there's a new accident. We just never know what's going to come out." What often does emerge is an unsettling chorus of wheezes and groans, death rattles of a grand old instrument buckling under the weight of time. Unable to stand it any longer, one Chartres parishioner, Publisher Pierre Firmin-Didot, has launched a nationwide fund-raising campaign to help "Chartres refind its voice," as one newspaper put it.

It will take a lot of rallying. The once mighty organ, some of whose parts date back to 1475, has suffered severe internal injuries over the centuries. In 1836 a fire swept the cathedral and silenced the organ for a decade. Two world wars took an even heavier toll. The cathedral's stainedglass windows, removed to protect them from bombing raids, were replaced by sheets of oilcloth, which soon developed gaping holes, admitting not only rain and wind but also squadrons of pigeons that fancied the organ pipes as a roost. For years afterwards, repairmen were extracting pigeon skeletons from the pipes; some pipes have already caved in, while others are held together with string.

Campaigner Firmin-Didot figures that complete renovation will cost about $120,000. It will take a year to dismantle, renovate and reassemble the massive instrument as a "neoclassic" organ. When the job is done, says Organist Ruello, Chartres for the first time will hear "the wide range of musical literature to which it is rightfully entitled."