Raymond Russell Collection of Early
Keyboard Instruments

St Cecilia's Hall Museum of Instruments, Niddry Street, Cowgate, Edinburgh EH1 1LJ

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Procedings on the One-day Conference on the Historical Background to the New "Handel" Organ in St Cecilia's Hall

Conference held at St Cecilia’s Hall, Niddry Street, Cowgate, Edinburgh
on the 15th of August 1998

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Contents

• Background and History of the Organ
• List of Papers given at the Conference

Background and History of the Organ

Photograph by Joe Rock

In 1993 the Russell Collection of Early Keyboard Instruments at the University of Edinburgh was able to purchase a new chamber organ with an enharmonic tuning arrangement.  At the time of purchase this organ went straight from the former owner to the workshops of Dominic Gwynn for restoration.  The restoration is now finished and the organ has been installed permanently downstairs in the Laigh Room at St Cecilia’s Hall, home of the Raymond Russell Collection.  The presence of this organ has suddenly given the Laigh Room an eighteenth-century ‘feel’ that seemed to be lacking before.  Ever since its installation the organ has excited a great deal of interest by everyone who has come into contact with it.  It sounds wonderful, it is crisp and clear and it has a light responsive action.

During the course of the restoration Dominic Gwynn was able to establish that the organ was made by Thomas Parker of London, and it can be dated to the period around 1765.  The instrument is similar in many ways to another organ which Parker built for the Foundling Hospital in London, and which was installed there in 1768.  Before his death in 1759 George Frederick Handel became an important benefactor of the Foundling Hospital, gave a number of performances of Messiah there and donated the proceeds of these performances to the Foundling Hospital.  Handel even donated an organ to the Foundling Hospital and it was this organ that was used for the early performances of Messiah.

However, the organ given by Handel was unfortunately of poor workmanship and had to be replaced by the new organ by Thomas Parker in 1768.  The new organ was in no way an ordinary organ, however, and was quite different from the organ which Handel had had built for the Foundling Hospital.  Inspired by the writings of Robert White, a Cambridge don and authority on tuning, Thomas Parker built the Foundling Hospital organ with special registration levers which enabled it to be tuned in White’s tuning system and provided it with separate pipes for c sharp/d flat, d sharp/e flat, g sharp/a flat and a sharp/b flat.  The tuning of the orgain and the provision of these extra notes must have had important implications on the performances of Messiah which were given in the years after 1768.

The new organ installed in St Cecilia’s Hall has a similar system of extra pipes to that of the Foundling Hospital organ and is therefore very close in concept to the latter organ.  In addition the organ is a very fine instrument in its own right, and gives a very good impression of the sound world of Handel and of the other composers that were performed on the Foundling Hospital organ.

Because of the importance of the new organ and because it is such a fine instrument, it was decided to organise a conference at the beginning of the Edinburgh International Festival in 1998 with the organ as centrepiece.  The object of this conference was to explore the implications to the performances of Messiah and the other music performed at the Foundling Hospital of the tuning and construction of the Thomas Parker organ and, in a similar way, of the tuning and construction of the St Cecilia’s organ by Thomas Parker.  Certainly there would have been both advantages and problems in the use of this organ which were totally different from those of modern performances using normal equal temperament.  A demonstration of the instrument was given during the conference by Dr John Kitchen of the Faculty of Music.  This naturally included a demonstration of some of the advantages and problems of the organ’s tuning system possible with the organ's extra pipes in illustrations from Messiah, as well as in music by some of Handel’s contemporaries.

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List of Papers given at the Conference

• A.C.N. MacKenzie of Ord: Dr. Smith's "Equal-Harmony" tuning in the musical context of the time
• Dominic Gwynn: The enharmonic chamber organ by Thomas Parker at St Cecilia's Hall
• John Kitchen:  Musical Consequences of the tuning of the Foundling Hispital Parker organ to the perfomances of Messiah and the other music performed on the organ
• Donald Burrows Organs and Organists at the Foundling Hospital, 1750-1800
• Grant O'Brien: Robert Smith's "Equal Harmony" and the harpsichord built for it by Jacob Kirckman

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