Cavaillé-Coll, Aristide

Cavaillé-Coll, Aristide

(born Feb. 4, 1811, Montpellier, France—died Oct. 13, 1899, Paris) French organ builder. He settled in Paris in 1833 at Gioacchino Rossini's suggestion and with his brother and father built almost 500 organs in France, Belgium, The Netherlands, and elsewhere, including those in the Paris churches of Notre-Dame, La Madeleine, Ste. Clotilde, and La Trinité. With the goal of achieving an orchestral richness and variety of timbre, he introduced countless innovations; he is regarded as the creator of the French Romantic organ (which had great influence elsewhere as well), and composers such as César Franck, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Olivier Messiaen wrote particularly with the Cavaillé-Coll sound in mind.