Content area
Full text
BOOKS
Peter Williams, The King of Instruments: How the Organ Became Part of Western Culture. Richmond: OHS Press, 2012. Available from www. ohscatalog.org. Peter Williams is no stranger to the library of anyone seriously interested in the organ, its music, and its history. The King of Instruments: How the Organ Became Part of Western Culture does very well what any good book should: it provides an interesting story line, offers new insights into old ideas and assumptions, and gives the reader tremendous food for thought after the book finds its way to the bookshelf.
We clearly live in the "information age," where untold amounts of knowledge, wisdom, and lore are instantly available at one's fingertips. In contrast, Williams explores a world in which information about the organ's origin and early development is sketchy, ambiguous, and cloudy, often based on supposition, and is frequently undependable (ironically, not unlike some information found on today's Internet). In fact, much of the organ's early history wasn't written down at all.
The business of separating fact from fiction about early organs and organbuilding is...