NOTES & QUERIES
BERNARD EDMONDSWho said this ? 1. The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes. 2. Worcester Cathedral suggests possibilities calculated to appal the strongest heart. Let us hope that here and there a monarch of the past may be left in its pristine glory, and that organists may always be found who care to play on them. (1895) With this Notes & Queries I complete twenty-five years of compiling it, and I have decided that I must now relinquish the job. I am sorry in many ways, but as I indicated a few years ago facts have to be faced; time and tide wait for no man, so this will be my last issue. Many of the early queries could now be readily answered by the Archive, thanks in part to exposure in this column, which has certainly served a useful purpose in that way; but I feel that over the years there were occasions when it could have been used to greater advantage. In JBIOS1 I wrote: Most researchers must be familiar with those intriguing bits of information which come to hand on matters which, at the time, are wholly irrelevant. Notes - if made - are dropped into a drawer to await future consultation. And there they stay! Yet they might have provided a link some other worker needed to complete his investigations. It is one of the concerns of BIOS to break down this isolation, to bring researchers together, and to act as a clearing house, and it is hoped that Notes and Queries in the Reporter may develop in that way.
So it was with a rather frustrated feeling that I learned on several occasions that the missing information was known to one or more members all the time! The most sophisticated electronic searchers-out of information cannot find it when nobody divulges where it is - nor can they short-circuit inertia. The electronic revolution makes things easier in many ways, but it cannot do original research. It can only record it and make its conclusions accessible to others. Real research involves journeys to locations, sometimes rather inaccessible; frequenting libraries; and interviewing and corresponding with numerous people, including other researchers. It should also entail checking the accuracy, or otherwise, of published or generally accepted statements. One soon learns about sources where unreliable information is likely to lurk, but one can also unearth unpleasant surprises. * * * * I had just motored a relative to a small town on the Welsh border, and intended to find out whether any interesting organs were to be found in the locality. This was forty years ago, long before the advent of BIOS, and such information was scanty and often inaccurate, based as it mostly was on hearsay rather than evidence. It also percolated very slowly! It is very surprising, by the way, to consider the vast differences in the organ world since then, in almost every aspect. However, a little bird had told me that a local school contained something of interest. That day a crowded function was going on there, but I managed to slip in and take a peek. There was in a gallery an architect-designed case of considerable merit, which had a familiar look, and clearly demanded a lengthy visit on an occasion more convenient to the school authorities. Back at home, I located the case in volume 2 of the Adam brothers' Works of Architecture, for Sir Watkin Williams Wynn's Music Room in London. The 'local school', Lindisfarne College, was housed in Wynnstay Park, quondam country seat of the Wynn family, and I made an appointment for a visit, and learnt much of interest. Most of this had not surfaced in the public domain, but a few years later Michael Wilson researched it for his book on the English Chamber Organ so I need not record it here. In short, the 1774 Snetzler was moved, rebuilt, to Wynnstay in 1864 by Gray & Davison and had remained unaltered since. I found it an organ of character and integrity, an excellent product of the best period of Gray & Davison, and a real pleasure to play. There remained much Snetzler pipework and a scheme had been received for reducing the organ to Snetzler stops only. My opinion was asked, and I said it was wrong to slaughter such a splendid instrument for the sake of historical correctness. Those situations do occur - but in such as this it is the kind of conservation to be avoided. Anyway, common sense, or economics, stepped in and nothing happened. For thirty years or so no news emerged; but then, as you will know, the organ was thoroughly restored and is now to be found at the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff. * * * * The contract drawn up by Sir John Sutton when Bishop built the organ at Jesus College, Cambridge stipulated that the firm must spend a week on the organ every seven years. The instrument was in effect completely enclosed in a tonal box with shutters to the front, and had no reeds, so 'it only required tuning about as often as most organs require cleaning. With every possible attention given to it, we usually finished in half a day, and spent the rest of the week seeing Cambridge.' (From a letter to me by E.H. Suggate of Bishop & Son) * * * *
A receipt by Charles Quarles, reproduced by courtesy of the Master, Fellows and Scholars of Christ's College, Cambridge was referred to in Charles Quarles, Some Notes (JBIOS 15, 104) to which more information can now be added. His burial in the chancel of Old All Saints is recorded in the Registers, and has been noted in numerous publications, especially by Freeman in The Organ, volume 1, but writers have continued to state that he went on to become organist of York Minster. I opined that York might have been son of Cambridge, but the Registers of All Saints, in which parish Trinity College was situated, also tell us that the three children of Charles and Elizabeth Quarles do not include a Charles, who in any case would have been too young. Quarles was appointed organist at Trinity in 1688 and proceeded to Mus.B. in 1698, but no entry appears in the Admission Books, which would have noted his father's name and residence. It appears that both organists were born during the Interregnum, and it was not until the Restoration in 1660 that Baptism Registers were once more in regular use. The name of Smith was never associated with the organs Quarles provided for Christ's, Pembroke and Emmanuel Colleges until Hopkins and Rimbault listed them, certainly inaccurately, in 1855. They do contain Smith pipes, which with the cases had been recycled. This and the low prices confirm the suggestion that Quarles took advantage of available old material when building organs. To the Smith which he provided at Wisbech in 1711, after Smith's death, it may be possible to add another at Long Sutton in Lincolnshire, where in a 1928 guidebook is a statement that a Smith dated 1702 was acquired for £150. No source is noted. Quarles was working there in 1715, and it may be that he had been disposing of another offered for sale by Smith's widow. The case is not unaltered but the angel's heads retained are Smith type. Any further information will be most welcome. * * * * Talking to the organist of Woburn, I was told of a Snetzler organ at the nearby church of Eversholt, which had been moved there from the old Woburn Church to which it had been given by the then Duke of Bedford. So I visited it in July 1945: the case clearly owed nothing to Snetzler, but was a somewhat up-market version of the Timothy Russell case at Kimbolton (illustrated BIOSRep XXIII,1,23). The specifi-cation tallies with Sperling (2.3) apart from the addition of the eighteen-note Bourdon, altered pedal-board, and coupler. Seven years later I took Herbert Norman on an organ-crawl; we visited Eversholt and he confirmed that there were Snetzler pipes incorporated. By then some restoration and destruction had been carried out.
I have not been able to consult any of the original documents, but I was fortunate to be given some notes made by Victor Chubb, organist there 1930-36 and later at Woburn, who had examined some of the records. He tells us that the fiddle-g Swell compass was extended down to tenor c by adding seven stopped bass pipes, unenclosed, when I fear some unfortunate alterations were made - for instance, the fine old Swell Hautboy was replaced by the somewhat mild Gamba - out of character with the period of the organ. The worst piece of vandalism however was the scrapping of the Great Sesquialtera (two-rank mixture). I understand that at that time Snetzler's signature was discovered inside the soundboard (as was his custom). I always understood that the removal from Woburn and re-erection was carried out by Thomas Atterton of Leighton Buzzard, who probably added the Bourdon and altered the GG one-octave German pedal pull-downs to the present. It is not hard to guess who was responsible for the unfortunate alterations. A letter from Noel Bonavia-Hunt states: 'There is a (Snetzler) chimney flute in the Eversholt organ in which instrument I had a hand when Smith & Foskett overhauled it. It definitely contains Snetzler pipes, which bear his insignia'. What the latter remark means is unclear, but it has been misinterpreted to mean that Snetzler's name was on its usual place in the soundboard, which was not the case. Folklore has it that the organ was originally built as a chamber organ for the Duke of Bedford. The sources tell us that it was by T. Russell 1836, presented by the then Duke to Woburn Old Church, being a one-manual, the Swell added by Russell at the expense of the next Duke in 1848. The truth must be that Russell included Snetzler stops from an old chamber organ of the Duke's. Chubb recalled seeing papers at Woburn recording the addition of barrel-organ equipment by Robson, who was later employed to build the first organ in the new church in 1868 (Church Choirmaster & Organist, October 1868). Robert Shaftoe, who restored the Eversholt organ in 1973 and did something about its 'unfortunate alterations', tells me that he did not come across the usual Snetzler label in the soundboard, which in any case was clearly c.1830. It had had a second set of pallets added, which bears out the barrel organ story. Shaftoe inserted a dulciana and mixture to replace the intruded gamba and céleste, and twelfth and mixture to heal the wound on the Great. The original Great knobs are over the Swell keys; the Swell knobs on the right jamb, Pedal and Couplers on the left jamb. It deserves a visit. * * * * In 1858 the 1853 St Joseph's RC Church, Leigh acquired from John Nicholson the organ by Elliot, originally at Bromsgrove, now much rebuilt by Pendlebury. It was decided to help pay for its installation by disposing of the chamber organ from the older small church. This was to be done by raffle. 400 tickets at 2/6d (12.5p) and on the first draw every tenth ticket would be a 'chance' and go on to the second draw. The winner, who turned out to be Mr James Shaw of Winsford, was to remove the organ at his own expense and risk, on payment of £1 towards the printing expenses. Nothing seems to be known about that organ. (Bryan Hughes) * * * * Enquiry about the organ given to the Huguenots of Spitalfields by George III. This migrated to the Shoreditch Methodist Mission in Hackney Road, where Speechly was to 'restore' it with, as Musical Opinion, May 1932, tells us, 27 stops and the latest tubular-pneumatic action and modern accessories It later went to St Peter, St Helier, Morden. I know nothing about it, except that I have heard that the historic case was later painted in bright colours. Over to you. * * * * Just after World War II I joined a tonal pilgrimage to the Walcker organ in the German Lutheran Church in Alie Street, Whitechapel. It was Advent and in a German tradition the church was decorated throughout with pine branches and quantities of greenery. I gathered that our Christmas Tree custom came from this, via Prince Albert. The London representative of the builders informed me that they had re-used the 1794 John England case retained at their 1886 rebuild (BIOSRep XIII,3,14). So I intended to go again, with camera, when the arboreal obstructions had been removed. This I never did. Paul Tindall, visiting more recently, queried this and dated it probably from 1886. I defer to Paul's judgment. The exact England connection requires archival ex-ploration. The same surely goes for Shifnal, where the England statements did not seem to me to square with the evidence on the ground. Concerning England, by the way, a letter from the bran-tub says that Cheshunt Church has an account dated 1791, no name attached, for a new organ costing £280 9s 6d and a letter regarding 'repairs to an even older organ dated 1778 and signed 'John England and Hugh Russell'. Presumably this means the organ, not the letter? I have not seen this recorded elsewhere. * * * * The Lee organ, July Reporter, was Snetzler 1758. Trillet's Wilderness, April, Wesley's. * * * * G.F. & J. Stidolph, organ-builders of Woodbridge, near Ipswich in 1860 took out a patent for several organ mechanisms. Some depended for their operation on rubber bands, which does not inspire confidence! The best of the bunch was a soundboard which ingeniously set out to lighten the touch by opposing the pressure on the main pallet by a secondary pallet with a lesser pressure in the opposite direction, as can readily be seen from their drawing. I do not know where it was actually used or how succesful it proved in practice, though I understand it attracted the attention of at least one builder - sorry, no particulars nor evidence.
Answers to Who said this? 1 ) Sir Thomas Beecham 2) Walter Bernhard
Thank you for sending me queries and information over the years. Keep up the good work with the future set-up. Any correspondence concerning items raised in this issue will be welcome, but after that I shall not be undertaking any research. Best wishes to you all. |
