Organ
Sacred music was a very important activity in this temple, so it had to have an excellent organ that could assume that musical category.
The great patron was D. Manuel PaulĂn de la Barrera, who offered a large amount of money for the construction of a new organ and a new choir stalls, consisting of 25 chairs and auxiliary furniture such as the main lectern, choirboys’ lecterns, benches of various sizes, lecterns and kneelers for the archbishop and his seat.
Built between 1792 and 1796 by Juan de Bono and Manuel Barrera y Carmona, the new organ upheld the Collegiate Church’s illustrious musical tradition, whose foremost figure in the 17th century was the organist Correa de Arauxo.
Fashioned from wood, the organ is divided into two stacked bodies: a main body and an attic. The main body features Corinthian pilasters dividing it into three sections, housing the vertical pipes. Musical instrument reliefs adorn the spaces between the pilasters.
A wide horizontal cornice rises above these tubes, which curves in the central part. Above this cornice rises the second body with a new set of tubes, flanked by two columns with Corinthian capitals and topped with a plain tympanum pediment. On both sides of this second body there are sculptures of juvenile angels and at the apex of the pediment there is a trumpeter angel with wings spread out, reminiscent of the angels that Cayetano de Acosta used to depict in his altarpieces.
This organ was located, next to the choir stalls, in front of the main altar occupying the second section of the central nave until 1861, when, after the dissolution of the collegiate chapter, and with it the daily choir duties, it was moved to its usual place.