Wolff & Associés, Opus 27, 1984
2 manuals and pedal
27 stops, 37 ranks
Mechanical action

The organ standing in the west gallery is a tracker-action instrument built by the firm Hellmuth Wolff & Associates in 1984.   The specification was drawn up in consultation with the late Professor Donald Mackey, Director of Music from 1981-1986.  To date, the instrument has been featured on four professional compact disc recordings, and is widely considered to be one of Montreal's finest examples of mechanical-action organ construction.

Karl Raudsepp (Organs of Montreal, 1991) reports that the parish first used a meledeon. About 1863, the parish purchased a pipe organ, at a cost of $1,200 from S.R. Warren of Montreal. The instrument was subsequently moved into the present building at the west end with the choir in the east end chancel. The 1863 organ was soon supplemented with a large chamber organ purchased from the Mountain family and installed in the chancel, and the 1863 organ was eventually rebuilt with its console being moved to the chancel.

None of these arrangements proved to be satisfactory and, in 1886, S.R. Warren & Son of Toronto was contracted to build a new 3-manual 30-stop electric-action organ for the church, at a cost of $4,500; it was installed in 1892. The Great, partially enclosed, was in the rear with most of the Pedal division; the Swell and Choir, both enclosed, were in the chancel with one Pedal stop.

In 1915, Casavant Frères rebuilt the organ and placed it in a "chamber" in the chancel with an Echo division suspended on the west wall.

In 1981, while the organ had grown too old to be restored, it was decided to buy a new instrument and the contract was awarded to Hellmuth Wolff. While preserving 4 Warren stops and 1 Casavant stop, Wolff, in collaboration with the then organist, Donald Mackey, designed an intrument in the great 17th and 18th-centuries British organbuilding traditions with opened and stopped Diapasons, Twelfth and Fifteenth and mainly with Nason 4' and 2' (stopped flutes found in instruments built by British organbuilder Father Smith). Wolff also included French stops like Basoon 16' and Cromhorn 8' who, in spite of their English names, are scaled after Dom Bédos.

The Wolff organ is not in the chancel but in the gallery that was newly built to receive it. The instrument was inaugurated on February 12, 1984 by Donald Mackey, and since that time has been featured on a number of professional compact disc recordings.  The most recent disc featuring the instrument was an award-winning recording of works by John Bull (1562-1628) released on the ATMA Classique label in 2001 by St. John’s Director of Music from 1999-2003, Kevin Komisaruk.

Stoplist