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Organ in Taunton saved

Started by diapason, January 05, 2012, 02:19:33 PM

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diapason

I have heard today that this organ http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?Fn=Rsearch&rec_index=N06884 is being removed from the church by Matthew Copley.  It is a very fine instrument, which was once part of the largest organ in the world at the time, in the Apollonicon in Regent's Park, London.  I was organist of the church prior to 2008 and did some research into it's history which I have sent to Matthew.  The church were going to throw the organ into a skip despite the faculty for it's removal requiring that it was preserved.  Matthew is planning to remove the organ to his workshop and look for a new home.  Deo Gracias.
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revtonynewnham

Hi

If anyone else wants to look up the NPOR entry, you'll need to remove the "is" that's strayed from the following text onto the end of the link!

Can I ask that you e-mail the NPOR office with a note that the organ has been removed.

Thanks

Every Blessing

Tony

diapason

I've amended the NPOR entry and will let them know as soon as I hear that Matthew has moved the organ.  It's very good news that this organ is being saved - Matthew told me that he advised the church to keep it, but they were determined to 'skip' it if he didn't take it.

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David Pinnegar

Dear Nigel

Thanks so much for mentioning the Apollonicon: it aroused my curiosity and as a result found on the Anglican Music forum the following description:
Quote"A large chamber organ of peculiar construction, comprising both keyboards and barrels, erected by Flight and Robson,Organ Builders, and for many years publicly exhibited by them in their London showrooms in St.Martins Lane. Before building the Apollonicon, F&R had constructed, under the inspection of Purkis, the organist, a similar but smaller instrument fro Viscount Kirkwall. This instument, being exhibited in the builders' factory and attracting great attention, induced its fabricators to form the idea of constructing a larger instrument upon the same plan for public exhibition. They accordingly, in 1812, began building the Apollonicon. They were engaged nearly five years in its construction and expended £10,000 in perfecting it. The instrument contained about 1900 pipes, the lowest (24 feet in length and 23 inches in girth), sounding GG, and the highest sounding a''''. There were 45 stops, several of which gave excellent imitations of the tones of the wind instruments of the orchestra: flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, horn and trombone. A pair of kettledrums were enclosed within the case and struck by machinery. The manuals were six in number, detached from the body of the organ, so that the players sat with their faces to the audience and their backs to the instrument. The barrels, three in number, in their revolution not only admitted the wind to the pipes, but regulated and worked the stops, forming by instantaneous mechanical action, all the necessary combinations for producing the various gradations of power. To secure the means of performing pieces of greater length than were usually executed by barrels, spiral barrels were introduced, in which the pins,instead of being arranged in circles, were disposed in spiral lines. The mechanical action of the Apollonicon was first exhibited in June 1817, when the barrels performed the overtures to Mozart's 'Clemenza di Tito' and Cherubini's 'Anacreon'.The instrument was exhibited for nearly a quarter of a century. The performanceof the Overture to Weber's 'Oberon' in particular, was said to be a perfect triumph of mechanical skill and ingenuity,every note of the score being rendered as accurately as though executed by a fine orchestra. About 1840, the exhibition of the instrumenthaving become unremunerative, the Apollonicon was taken down and its component parts employed in the construction of other organs."

Certainly a historic instrument and anyone contemplating skipping it should have been . . . shot at dawn . . . !

Thank goodness for Matthew's rescue of it. Let's hope he can find it a home . . .

Best wishes

David P


revtonynewnham

Hi

The passage you quote is actually in error!  There were 3 or 4 organs called "Applociaon" - the Flight & Robson you mention was one of them, the Regent's Park was another - that was by Bevington.  The term was also used for a while for any barrel & finger organ.  See Arthur Ord-Hume's book "barrel organ" for the full story - there are several pages of it.

Every Blessing

Tony

diapason

Interesting.  From memory, the information I had on the organ was that F&R built it, initially for display in their works.  It was then moved to the Apollonicon, a son et lumiere theatre in Regent's Park, where it had six independent consoles.  Around 1840, when the Apollonicon ceased to be used for son et lumiere productions, the organ was removed and bought by T.J.F. Robson who used what he described as 'the best pipework' to build the 2 manual & pedal which ended up in Bishop's Hull, Taunton in 1863.  I have a copy of the advert which Robson placed in the musical press to sell the surplus pipework.  There is circumstantial evidence to suggest that Dr William Crotch and James Turle, both of whom had Taunton connections, were instrumental in recommending the organ to Bishop's Hull.  A local organbuilder, William Knight, did work on the organ around 1900, and Osmonds of Taunton rebuilt it and electrified the pedal in 1968.  The Robson builder's plate on the organ gives an address as  'Apollonicon Works'.

N