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The Elusive English Organ, A Documentary Film and Recording Featuring Daniel Moult, Fugue State Films: DVD 50 minutes, CD 72 minutes. Available from www.ohscatalog.org, $26.95. This beautifully executed production is filled with delightful treasures. Perhaps one should watch the video first because it lays out what British organ virtuoso Daniel Moult endeavors to accomplish. Although, as he points out, some of the world's most beautiful organ music was produced in England, there is a great paucity of instruments contemporary with the music on which to perforin the earlier works. Almost nothing at all survives from before the Cromwellian revolution, and not a lot from after the Restoration until well into the 19th century.
The film allows us to see and hear two instruments built by Goetze & Gwynn based on two soundboards (we Americans would call them toeboards), the only surviving parts of a pair of early English organs. Martin Goetze explains how amazingly much information is revealed in a soundboard, showing how many stops, how many notes, and even approximate scales of the pipes. Although there is no way of knowing how accurate these reconstructions are, especially as to the soLtnd, their inclusion gives us an intriguing hint as to what has been lost.
From here we go to Brittany in northwestern France to experience two Dallam organs, one by Robert in 1653 and the other by Thomas in 1680. Robert Dallam left England before the outbreak of the English Revolution in 1642 and thus was able to continue his organbuilding career. It seems likely that his Brittany organs would have continued some or even most of the characteristics of the organs he built in England, although there were probably some adjustments to suit the French taste. At any rate, these two organs have lovely, arresting sounds.
Next are two organs not in churches. I should mention in passing that Moult lets us see him walking into the places where the organs are, usually with background music coming from the organ even before he reaches it. The visual part is charming because it's like we are really going with him, and we get to see some of the local color before concentrating on the instrument.
The first of these organs in private...