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Henry Purcell - Voluntary for Double Organ

Adam Wilson performs Henry Purcell's Voluntary for Double Organ in D Minor (1685) on the newly restored 1879 'Father' Willis/Harrison & Harrison organ of St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh. https://adamwilsonorganist.wordpress.... Henry Purcell (1659-1695) was widely regarded as the finest British musician of his generation. Purcell would have been involved in a number of dramatic events and ceremonies as Organist of Westminster Abbey and the Chapel Royal, as well as through his work with the theatre and as composer to King Charles II: one unusually entertaining event was a 'Battle of the Organs' in 1684. This was a competition between two rival organ-builders - Renatus Harris and Bernard Schmidt, better known in Britain as 'Father' Smith - to determine whose instrument would be installed in the Temple Church, London, as the church's authorities could not agree. Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth had ordered organs be removed from churches in the 1640s as the instruments, even music itself, had come to represent the vanity and idolatry that Puritanism detested. After the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, cathedrals, churches, and colleges were keen to restore their organs; many had seen their organs destroyed which meant restoration was impossible, so were eager commission new instruments. Whereas developments in organ design had stagnated even before Cromwell's rule, the Restoration brought a sense of renewal and progress. Because most organ builders, like Harris' father, had moved to the continent after being put out of work by Cromwell's policies, those who returned brought knowledge of instruments they found there, and foreign organ-builders such as the German, Smith, were eager to prove themselves. Among the most important developments made in organ design were the introduction of reed stops and mixtures, as well as additional keyboards. As one of London's most prestigious buildings of worship, the Temple Church presented a prestigious opportunity which would all but guarantee future commission and fame. The rivalry between the Anglo-Frenchman and the German wrought such a heated display of one-upmanship that the competition became a musical arms race of sorts. On the night before the event, Harris' team were even accused of slashing the leather of the bellows of the Smith organ so that no air would be able to make the pipes sound! Meanwhile Smith had enlisted the esteemed Organist to the King, Purcell, to demonstrate his organ, while Harris employed the Organist to the Queen, the Italian Giovanni Battista Draghi, as Purcell's reputation was so great that no Englishman seemed willing to compete against him. Purcell's Voluntary for Double Organ (literally an organ with two or more keyboards), which was composed in the year following the event, blurs the lines between the English "Voluntary", which generally involved various melodic lines imitating each other in a loosely fugal structure, and the French idiom of the "Dialogue" with its dialogue between virtuosic scales on a solo stop (such as the trumpet stop heard in this video) and consort-like accompaniment. It is possible that Purcell, who would have been required to showcase the variety of stops on Smith's organ, was inspired by the new reed stops of the Smith and Harris organs in the Temple Church when he composed this lively and virtuosic piece.