THE EARLIEST ENGLISH ORGAN-BUILDERSBETTY MATHEWSVery little has ever been written about early English Organs, and what we have are largely 'handmedowns' copied from printed sources of the last century or so, thus perpetrating a great many errors. Modern research has shed much light on the so called 'Dark Ages' and a picture emerges of a period of travelling and trading between this country and the Continent, but there was certainly a time of dreadful warring and destruction by pagan invaders from Northern Europe; English monasteries were almost wiped out c8?0 by the Danes. The reconstruction and reformation of the Church in the mid 10th century was achieved by the efforts of three men, Dunstan, Ethelwold and Oswald. The first two were said to be the earliest organ-builders in this country.But to go back to the beginning. I have not been able to find the reference to organs said to have been made by Bede (except for a rather suspect quotation in The Musical World of 18 March 1856) and Perrot has deleted this in the second edition of his fascinating 'L'Orgue de ses Origines...'. It seems unlikely that Bede who probably never left his base in Jarrowinthe wild north had any connection with the instrument, if indeed it existed at that time, between 675 and 755 A.D. St Aldhelm, born 659 became a pupil at Malmesbury of the Irish monk Maildulf, not in the Abbey as is generally imagined, but in the sort of humble celllike building in which Irish monks tended to live. At the age of fifty-one Aldhelm went to Canterbury and apparently studied music, (although this probably meant mathematics) and became in later life a scholar and a writer in a particularly Irish form of Latin. Owing to ill health, he returned to Malmesbury which had evolved into a monastery and became the first Abbott, founding other monasteries including Frome and BradfordonAvon. When he was about fifty, (689) he went to Rome, and after this time there are many allusions in his Riddles and other writings to organs, which, in my opinion cannot be imaginary. This is a debatable point and one must ask where he heard these instruments which were unknown in Europe at that date. It is of course possible that. he went to Byzantium and that he travelled to places east of Rome. Aldhelm was not an organ builder, but certainly seems to have heard organs. He did though play some sort of stringed instrument and he is said to have disguised himself and sung in the open air to his own accompaniment, songs into which he gradually introduced religious subjects in order to attract his hearers into the church. ('Why should the devil have all the good tunes?'). At the age of 66 he became, in 705,the first Bishop of Sherborne, and died at Doulting in Somerset in 709. We pass from Aldhelm over two and a half centuries, to an England at peace under Alfred (872901). At this period southwestern England (not Devon and Cornwall, but Somerset and Wiltshire) was visited by large numbers of Irish monks skilled in music and metalwork. They proliferated at GLastonbury, the oldest Christian sanctuary in England. To this school was brought Dunstan, said to have been born at Baltonsborough, Somerset c.924. We know a good deal about Dunstan, for there are no less than six early biographies of him see, Bishop Stubbs's 'Memorials of Dunstan'. Rolls Series No. 65. 1875. Scholars have cast doubts on their veracity; however, we can recognize all the well known facts about Dunstan and his musical abilities. It is interesting to read of Dunstan's building himself a cell, 5x2 feet and using as a forge where he made metal objects, organs and bells. (I know the word 'organa' can also mean musical instruments, but I doubt if they would have been made in a forge). We do not know to what design these organs were made, but by 757 the organ had come to Europe and Dunstan certainly travelled on the Continent (he was exiled for two years to Flanders). What is more important, to my mind, is the Irish metal working connection. We have all seen the wonderful Celtic ornaments made of various metals and the fact that Dunstan is the patron saint of metal workers strongly underlines his skills in this direction. According to Butler's 'Lives of the Saints' he is also Patron Saint of goldsmiths, jewellers and locksmiths. William of Malmesbury, who was brought up in the Abbey of Malmesbury where he became the Librarian and who wrote one of the six 'Lives', gives us much information about Dunstan, but he lived a very long time afterwards (about 180 years) and his history was of necessity largely composed of hearsay. He does however give the impression that Dunstan was a key figure in spreading all over England 'that instrument which the ancients called the barbiton' [Aldhelm uses this word] 'and we call an organ'. He also tells us that Dunstan so revered Aldhelm that he restored and decorated the Abbey of Malmesbury , and either gave or built an organ on which a plaque was placed to his memory. Dunstan became Abbot of GELastonbury, Bishop of Worcester, and died as Archbishop of Canterbury in 988. Ethelwold was also a student at Glastonbury at the same time as Dunstan and learned the same skills. He is said to have asked for the ruined Abbey of Abingdon, and, around 954, set about rebuilding it. It was he and not Dunstan who 'with his own hands' made an organ and bells, amongst other things for the Abbey. Before he was made Bishop of Winchester (963), Ethelwold sent to Cluny for monks to help improve the singing at Abingdon. He began to build a new cathedral at Winchester but died before it was finished. We have a highly coloured account by the writer Wulfstan, who Swas present at the dedication service and who describes the great new organ in '.Swithini vita et miracula'. He also says that it replaced an earlier instrument which must surely have been built by Ethelwold who died in 984. The 'great organ' can therefore not be dated earlier that 985. It seems reasonable to suppose that Dunstan and Ethelwold would have built organs for all the monasteries they founded which included Thorney (972), Medehamstede (Peterborough) where Ethelwold found nothing but 'old walls and wild woods' in 966, and Ely (970). Monasteries were also restored at Worcester, Bath, Cerne, Westbury, Winchcombe, Eynsham as well as Abingdon. Arthur Bryant in 'Makers of the Realm' says that in the latter part of the tenth century, Ely became famous for music and metalwork, bell casting and organ building. He does not give his source. There was certainly an organ at Bamsey, an isolated fenland town where an Abbey had been founded by Oswald. The organ was given by the Earl of East Anglia, whose name is variously spelt as Ailwin, Aethelwine or Ethelwine, and is described in 'Chronicon Abbatiae Rameseiensis'. Rolls Series 85. I hope I will not be thought presumptions for writing the above account as I am not a Latin scholar nor a church historian. I have however read a great deal about this period and have learnt to admire the enormous courage of these early workers for the Christian church in England. There are many pitfalls in trying to insert the word 'organ' into texts where it does not belong. Unfortunately 'organa' often means musical instruments where it looks as if it should mean 'organ'. I have therefore not presumed to quote from the many Latin sources I have checked, such as the Winchester Troper where 'laudibus organ! pneuma' sounds so hopeful. I have been through the whole of Wulfstan's 'Life of St Swithun' and the page containing the description of the great Winchester organ is reproduced in my 'The Music of Winchester Cathedral' (Stainer & Bell: Galaxy. 1924) page 5. I have looked out relevant passages in the Chronicles of Abington, Croyland and Ramsey, and have been through all of Dunstan's biographies, including Osbern's in the original manuscript. I hope it will be felt that this account goes some way to putting the records straight. |