Aristide Cavaillé-Coll built an organ in the great hall of the Parisian Palais du Trocadéro with 66 registers on four manuals for the World Exhibition in Paris in 1878 . It corresponded to the most modern level of organ building technology and is considered to be the embodiment of the orchestral sound ideal Cavaillé-Colls. It was played in public for the first time on August 7, 1878 by Alexandre Guilmant . From 1926 to 1927 it was renovated during Marcel Dupré's time . In 1935 the Palais du Trocadéro had to give way to the Palais de Chaillot . However, the organ was also installed here and revised by Victor Gonzalez . She stayed there until 1972.
In 1975 Louis Pradel, the mayor of Lyon, reached through contacts with Pierre Cochereau that the organ would be made available free of charge to the newly built auditorium Maurice Ravel . A commission consisting of Gaston Litaize , Pierre Cochereau, Louis Robilliard and Marcel Paponnaud entrusted the work to Gonzalez's son-in-law and successor, Georges Danion. A large part of the pipe material was reused, but the sound was sharpened by new mixtures or their modifications; since then the positif can no longer swell. Pierre Cochereau played the organ for the first time on November 27, 1977 at its Lyon location.
