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 Paulín 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.

The new organ was built by Juan de Bono and Manuel Barrera y Carmona between 1792 and 1796. The Collegiate Church had a brilliant musical tradition, whose most universal figure had been, in the 17th century, the organist Correa de Arauxo.
It is made of wood and divided into two superimposed bodies, a main one and an attic. The main body is articulated in three parts by means of four Corinthian pilasters and where the vertical pipe is located. Reliefs of musical instruments are developed 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.