Charles Mutin

Charles Mutin

Charles Mutin (born April 7, 1861 in Saint-Julien-sur-Suran , Jura department , † May 29, 1931 in Paris ) was a French organ builder and successor to Aristide Cavaillé-Coll as head of the organ building company of the same name.

Life

Mutin was born in Saint-Julien-sur-Suran in 1861, the son of Claude-François Mutin, an innkeeper. His mother, Ernestine Ligier, was 25 years younger than his father; he had a sister four years older, Ernestine, and a sister two years older, Elisabeth. His father died in 1868 and Mutin grew up with his mother. In 1870 the family had to move to Paris for financial reasons. He attended the Catholic boys' boarding school in Meaux and stood out for his very good performance in Latin. In 1875 he was apprenticed to Aristide Cavaillé-Coll at his mother's request . There he was assigned to the voicer Joseph Koenig (* 1846, † 1926), who married Mutin's sister Ernestine on May 20, 1882.

In 1882 Mutin was drafted into the military and served in the 117th Infantry Regiment in Argentan . During this time he met Eugénie Crespin (* 1870, † 1953) and married her on January 23, 1888. For the next ten years he stayed in Guibray on Rue du Pot d'Etain. In 1898 he bought A. Cavaillé-Coll Fils & Cie , which was on the verge of bankruptcy, and whose former owner, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll , died a short time later. Since then the company has operated as Mutin-Cavaillé-Coll. Mutin gave the funeral oration at Cavaillé-Coll's grave. Mutin's first large organ became a concert organ for the Moscow Conservatory , which was introduced at the 1900 World's Fair .

Mutin was at times close friends with the organist Louis Vierne , who dedicated his second symphony, composed in 1902, to him. After that, however, Mutin began an affair with Vierne's wife Arlette, b. Taskin, a daughter of the opera singer Émile-Alexandre Taskin . The friendship between Vierne and Mutin broke up and Vierne divorced his wife in 1909.

In 1924, Mutin was replaced by Auguste Convers as head of the company; However, Convers was only able to hold out until 1928, as the electrical series instruments he supplied were only rarely able to satisfy the demands of customers; the company was converted into an AG. Mutin died shortly afterwards on May 29, 1931 of colon cancer . The Cavaillé-Coll manufactory merged with Pleyel about ten years later in the middle of the Second World War .

List of works (selection)

Mutin built a total of 552 new organs and made 251 repairs.

year	opus	place	church	image	Manuals	register	Remarks
1892		Koenigsfeld-Neuhausen	Catholic Church of St. Martin		II / P	9	restored in 1997
1893		Trouville-sur-Mer	Notre-Dame de bon secours		II / P	20th	a pedal transmission (16 'tongue); Presented at the international exhibition in Lyon in 1893 and awarded a gold medal; Acquired in 1894 by the parish in Trouville; Restored in 2004
1898		Osnabrück	St. Peter's Cathedral		II / P	12 (15)	three transmissions into the pedal; acquired in 1999
1899		Meudon	Private concert hall, boulevard Anatole-France		III / P	28	House organ for Alexandre Guilmant , taken over by his pupil Marcel Dupré in 1925, electrified by Joseph Beuchet-Debièrre in 1932/34 and extended by a fourth manual
1899		Moscow	conservatory		III / P	50	First organ as owner of the workshop of Cavaillé-Coll, presented at the Paris World Exhibition in 1900, installed in the Conservatory in 1901, restoration 2014–16 by Rieger Orgelbau → Organ
1902		Paris	Schola Cantorum		III / P	28 (31)	Arrangement 1960–67 changed by organ builder Joseph Beuchet-Debièrre
1903		Metz	Notre Dame		III / P	38	Built in the historical prospect of the former baroque organ of St. Simeon in Trier , which was sold to Metz in 1803. Restored in 1983. The organ is available on Hauptwerk .
1903		Paris	Palais de Béhague, Byzantine Hall		II / P	26th	Organ under monument protection since 2007 (classified as "Monument Historique")
1905		Zaitzkofen	Seminary		II / P	10	acquired in 1980
1907		Clervaux Benedictine Abbey of St. Mauritius and St. Maurus		III / P	20th	Built in 1907 for the Petit Trocadéro in Paris; Installed in Clervaux Abbey in 1910; Paul Benoit played and composed on this organ
1908		Nouméa	cathedral		II / P	11	1981/94 extended to II / 17; restored 2010/12
1908		Guebwiller	Notre Dame		III / P	45	The organ stands in a historic case from 1785 and was inaugurated by Charles-Marie Widor in 1908 .
1911		Algiers	Notre-Dame d'Afrique		III / P	26th	one of five Mutin organs in North Africa; Built in 1911 for a private house in Algiers, donated to the Notre-Dame d'Afrique church in 1930; restored in 2002
1912		Buenos Aires	Basilica del Santissimo Sacramento		IV / P	71
1914		Paris	Sacré-Coeur de Montmartre		II / P	19th	→ Main article : Organs of the Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre
1918		Oran	former Sacré-Cœur cathedral (now public library)		II / P	27 (30)	three pedal transmissions; currently in need of restoration
1918		Wihr-au-Val	cath. Parish Church of Saint Martin		III / P	30th	Originally the house organ of the composer Claude Duboscq (1897–1938) in Onesse-et-Laharie, then of the composer Marius Monnikendam (1896–1977) in The Hague; sold in 1955 to Wihr-au-Val in Upper Alsace through Albert Schweitzer's mediation ; on the instrument cf. in detail organ 3/2008, p. 2 ff.
1920		Bark	St. John		II / P	9	originally in the theater in Marseille , therefore as a theater organ in a swell box without a prospectus; 1966 from the cath. Church in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin bought; acquired for Borken in 2010
1920		Kiel	St. Nikolai		II / P	18th	acquired in 2003
circa 1920		Freiburg in Breisgau	University of Music		II / P	8th	acquired in 2008; originally a house organ for the bookseller and publisher Fleury; the case was in the style of the French. Brittany running
1922		Douai	St-Pierre de Douai		IV / P	67
1923		Paris	Ste-Marie des Batignolles		III / P	36	Organ from Ste-Marie des Batignolles
		Cologne	University of Music and Dance		II / P	12	acquired in 2002

literature

• E. Rupp: Two newer organ works by Cavaillé-Coll succ. (Charles Mutin). In: Zeitschrift für Instrumentenbau. Volume 22, 1901/1902, pp 697-699 ( digitale-sammlungen.de ).
• Charles Mutin, Manufacture de grandes orgues pour églises, chapelles & salons . Paris, List of Works by the House of Cavaillé-Coll-Mutin, p. 17-23 (probably 1923).
• Jean Huré: L'esthétique de l'orgue . Éditions Maurice Senat, Paris 1923, Les orgues de M. Charles Mutin, p. 125-140 .
• Loïc Métrope: Charles Mutin (1861–1931) . In: Les facteurs d'orgues français . No. 18 , 1994, p. 30-38 .
• Richard Kassel: Mutin, Charles . In: Douglas E. Bush, Richard Kassel (Eds.): The Organ. To Encyclopedia . Routledge, New York / London 2006, ISBN 0-415-94174-1 , pp. 363 .

Web links

Commons : Charles Mutin  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Homepage about Charles Mutin (French)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jeremy Filsell: Louis Vierne: His Life . ( Memento of the original from February 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF) chandos.net; Quote: "The painful discovery of his wife's adultery with a supposed friend (Charles Mutin, the dedicatee of the Deuxième Symphonie) led to a divorce in 1909." 
2. ↑ Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory Orgues France (French)
3. ↑ The Cavaillé-Coll / Mutin organ by Notre-Dame de Metz on organ bits, sample sets