21 OLIVIER LATRY So, to get back to the organ, did I have to deny myself the Swell box, or specific mixtures of stops such as the Flûte harmonique, on the pretext that they did not exist in Bach’s time? Just think of the registration that Liszt thought up, in collaboration with Töpfer,4 for the Passacaglia! Another example: in the chorale In dir ist Freude BWV 615, one of the themes played with the pedal almost evokes peals of bells. So I use the Chimes (Jeu de cloches) of the organ of Notre-Dame . . . Not to use these colours would be as absurd as a pianist banning the use of the pedal in Bach’s music on the futile pretext of imitating the touch and sound of the harpsichord. To play Bach on the modern piano is already, in itself, a transcription. The same is true of the Cavaillé-Coll of Notre-Dame, which was inaugurated in 1868.
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