S. Vici organ ,1828  

Centobuchi di Monteprandone , Ascoli Piceno

 RECONSTRUCTION AND RESTORING , year 2016

This instrument is the opus 167 of Sebastiano Vici, an italian builder of Montecarotto, in the Marche’s region, Italy. The organ had been builded in 1828 for the Fano’s Cathedral; in 1909 it was solded at San Benedetto del Tronto’s Cathedral and reassembled whit some changes; in the ninenty the organ was dismantled and badly stored in few rooms of the church of “Regina Pacis” in Centobuchi di Monteprandone; meanwhile the main windchest was liyng outdoors, at the mercy of weather. This organ is really interesting because is one of the largest he made, furthermore is the last one builded: Sebastaiano Vici, in fact, died after a few months. The Vici’s opus 167  actually represent the typical pre-romantic large type instrument of Marche, which is primarily modelled on neoclassical venetian organ. However the noticeable feature of Vici’s latest works, is that he complete this model trough personal intuitions: he was looking for a more expressive-orchestral value for his instruments. In fact, among other, he added on more eight foot reeds on the manual, the Violoncello bassi and the Violino soprani, which are closed in a little sweelbox on the bottom of main windchest, he replace the most common Flauto in V° with a very lovely eight foot flute stop ,the Traversiere 8’. Also, in the Ripieno he always include the 22/3’ rankand  make the Cornetta 13/5’ with principal scale instead of usually flute scale.

The stuffs were in very poor condition when restoring started, both for the mechanical parts and the pipe works; fortunately most of the original parts were still in place. Every authentic element has been carefully restored and those lost, has been remake “ in copy”. The organ case, the keyboard, the pedalboard, drawstop knob, pipe racks and bellows were rebuilded basing on Vici's organs of the same period. The pipe work is  80% original; Trombone 8’ on the pedal, Violoncello 8’ bassi and Violino 8’ soprani  and most of the Cornetta 13/5’ are new. The restoration of the pipework has taken a long time because they was really bad: a lot of them were squashed, with frequently detached among body, foot and languid. The original voicing has been deeply altered due to heavy nicking and the pitch was about half tone lower at first. Fortunately the mouth ratio has remain intact, apart in rare cases. Working to get in order pipes geometry and attribute, we achieved the purpose.

                   Disposition

Manual range: 50 tasti C/E-f3   Pedal range: 18 tasti C/E-g# 

Pull-down pedeal, division d1/d#1

Accessories : swell box key-pedal, acoustic drum "rollante",  handle "tiratutti" 

Temperament :  1/6 comma irregular,  a1 431,5 Hz at 18°C

Wind pressure : 62 mm water column

AUDIO FILES