Pipe by precious pipe, the organ that once thundered through Notre Dame Cathedral is being taken apart after last year’s devastating fire.
The mammoth task of dismantling, cleaning and reassembling France’s largest musical instrument started on Monday and is expected to last nearly four years.
Once restored, it would take six months just to tune the organ, according to the state agency overseeing Notre Dame’s restoration.
Photo: Reuters
Its music is not expected to resound again through the medieval Paris monument until 2024, to the dismay of the cathedral’s dedicated organists.
“It’s a very powerful organ, but with also a lot of poetry,” said Johann Vexo, who was playing the organ during an evening Mass when the fire alarm sounded on April 15 last year. “It’s just probably the most beautiful organ in the world.”
Amazingly, the 8,000-pipe organ survived the fire, which consumed the cathedral’s roof and toppled its spire.
However, the blaze coated the instrument in toxic lead dust that must now be painstakingly removed.
While the organ did not burn, it did suffer damage from a record heat wave last summer and has been affected by other temperature variations it has been exposed to since the 12th-century cathedral lost its roof, the agency said.
Notre Dame remains closed to the public.
Experts started removing the organ’s keyboards on Monday and would then take out its pipes in a dismantling process that would last through the end of this year, the reconstruction agency said.
The pieces would be placed in special containers inside the huge cathedral, where the cleaning and restoration would take place.
The general who leads the agency said that the organ, which dates from 1733, would next play again on April 16, 2024, marking five years since the fire.
Vexo was already dreaming of that day.
“Like all my colleagues, we are very sad, and we know that we have to be very patient over the next few years,” he told reporters outside the cathedral.
He expressed hope that they will “find the building and instruments exactly as they were before, or almost exactly. We are waiting for this day ... when the building will reopen.”
French President Emmanuel Macron hopes the cathedral can reopen in time for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
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