I'm currently learning Francois Couperin's 'Mass for the Convents'. This organ masterpiece is one of the great works of the French Baroque period! As cool as French Baroque music is - French Baroque pipe organs are equally cool!
Below is Jean-Baptiste Robin playing a movement from the Mass for the Convents on the Clicquot pipe organ at la Cathédrale de Poitiers, France. The organ which Couperin himself played his entire life at Saint-Gervais was also a Clicquot (albeit it a slightly larger organ).
The clicking sound the organ makes is actually the mechanics of the organ and its action - since this instrument was built in the mid-18th century, it has no electricity or anything to assist its operation. The entire functioning of this quite large instrument is mechanical, hence the clicking noises. These noises can be heard up close, but from down in the nave where one would be during mass or a concert, the clicking is to far away to be heard, and only the sounding of the pipes is audible.
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