Descripción de Patrice Caire plays the Trocadéro Organ:

Patrice Caire playing the Toccata by Theodore Dubois (1837-1924) on an almost forgotten Cavaillé-Coll masterpiece. Dubois worked with Cesár Franck for 10 years as conductor of the choir in St Clothilde. He also became organist at La Madeleine church in paris and then becoming director of the Paris Conservatory. The organ was built by Cavaillé-Coll for the Trocadero palace in 1878 under the guidance of Alexandre Guilmant. It was to stand in a 5,000 seat hall with terrible dry acoustics. The order for the organ was placed, but the builder could not deliver an organ of the size required in time, luckily he had already begun to build a 3 manual instrument for the church of Notre Dame in Auteil, and with the blessing of Father Lamazou, he would use this organ as a basis for the concert organ. The specification swelled to 68 stops with a new bombarde division and 32' pipework in the pedal. In 1937 the Trocadero Palace was replaced (to popular acclaim) by the Challiot Palace, and space was found inside this building to house the organ. Victor Gonzalez rebuilt the organ in the neo-classical vein and installed in on a vast moving platform that could be moved out onto the stage when the organ was needed and hidden when not. The case was disposed of and the pipewrok displayed in a functional array. Virgil Fox made his famous recording of the Jongen Concertante with this organ in this hall with another very dry acoustic. Sadly in 1972 a decision was made to destroy the hall and to dismantle the organ, luckily the city of Lyon saved the organ and it was installed by Danion-Gonzalez in 1977 with a few additions (to make 81 stops) into the Auditorium Maurice Ravel, where it stands to this day. Sadly this instrument has largely ignored by record companies, apart from REM Editions of France who recorded several LPs with Patrice Caire playing. The organ is still fully functional and there are plans for many concerts in the coming months. This is the only CD of this organ as far as I know. Patrice Caire (1949-1992) was taught at the Paris Conservatoire by Rolande Falcinelli, he also undertook study with Suzanne Chaisemartin, Jean Langlais and Louis Robilliard. He was Professeur de formation musicale at the Conservatoire de Lyon, and organist at St-Bonaventure, Lyon. He completed this recording less than a year before his untimely death.