The organ in the Renaissance church of Santiago in Castaño del Robledo is an instrument of great singularity and beauty. It was built by the organ builder Francisco Ortíguez in 1750 and it seems to be the only instrument that has ever existed in the church.
Like all works executed in the archdiocese of Seville at that time, the organ project presented by Ortíguez to the church in Castaño was supervised by the ‘Master Organ Builder of the Archbishop’s Works’. This post was held at the time by the organ builder Francisco Pérez de Valladolid. The documents related to Ortiguez’s project as well as the reports signed by Pérez de Valladolid during the process of construction of the organ still exist in the archives in Seville. This circumstance enabled the reconstruction of the bellows, the keyboard and the original specification. The specification is as follows:
Except for the presence of a Corneta en ecos, the aesthetic of this specification is linked to those of organs built before 1700. Having no horizontal trumpets or Docena (2 2/3’) is very unusual for the organs constructed during the 18th century in the churches in the area of Seville.
In fact, the analysis of the pipes reveals that Francisco Ortíguez used the pipes of a pre-existing instrument. These pipes show a very particular kind of craftsmanship which can be related to the work of Flemish organ builders of the 16th and 17th centuries. The scaling and voicing of the pipes seems to have been conceived taking in account a very large church. This does not correspond to the dimensions of the modest church in Castaño del Robledo.
It is necessary to remember that Francisco Ortíguez had worked as an organ builder at the cathedral in Seville until 1740. During the construction of the new organs carried out in the period 1725-1740 he had to dismantle the earlier organs built by the Flemish Maese Jorge , built between 1567 and 1579. Given this situation, it is possible to establish as a hypothesis that Ortíguez used the pipes of those early organs to build the instrument preserved in Castaño del Robledo.
In any case, the organ of Castaño del Robledo has one of the most interesting ensembles of very early organ pipes that exist in Spain to date.
Even if the general state of the organ was very poor before the restoration, the pipes were in a good-enough condition as to permit a perfect restoration. The work was carried out by Gerhard Grenzing’s workshop during -7.
The organ of Castaño del Robledo has a pitch A=415 Hz and a meantone temperament of 2/7 comma.
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