It
didn't seem
worth looking for an organ in the little mission church - a hut-church
rather than a hall church. A harmonium with mice in it was the very
best that could be expected. (A hedgehog once appeared from one
in Invercargill, causing much consternation). However, sensible
Morecambe mice would be asleep on that typically wet Lancashire
afternoon and even looking at a harmonium would make a change from
driving.
The mahogany case, about the size of a very large book case
or wardrobe, its gilded front pipes glowing in the murk was a thrilling
as well as an unlikely sight. Above the single manual - black naturals
and white sharps - was the name John Snetzler ~ that of one of the
several great German builders who settled in England in the 17th
and 18th-centuries. (In recent years, it has been claimed that he
was Swiss.) His work included a considerable number of chamber organs,
similar to this, as well as larger church instruments, several of
which were made for the American colonies and their successor, the
USA. He invented the dulciana stop.
Of the two Snetzler small instruments illustrated here, fallible
memory suggests that in general appearance it more closely resembled
that at Eton College.
Unlike much of his work, this was in original condition. Errors
and omissions excepted ~ this was thirty-five years ago ~ the stop-list
was:
- Open Diapason(?)
8'
- Stopped
Diapason 8 '
- Dulciana
8'
- Principal
4'
- Flute 4'
- Fifteenth
2'
- Sesquialtera
(bass)
- Cornet
(treble)
- Hautboy
8'
Several of the stops beside the sesquialtera/cornet drew in
halves, with the break occurring at middle c. The hautboy was in
a swell box in which the shutter rumbled up and down like a sash
window. It was a versatile instrument intended to delight a drawing
room in Hanoverian England. How on earth it had come to such an
unlikely place?
When the church was first proposed, two ladies living in the parish
announced that they intended to present it with an organ they had
in their house.. General expectation was that it would be a harmonium
The Snetzler thus started on its fifty-year career of astonishing
people just by its presence .
The ladies' father, or perhaps grandfather, had bought it
from a house where it was no longer wanted and it had been in their
home ever since. The belief that it had been built for a Royal residence
deserved some credence because king George III had bought more than
one instrument from Snetzler. No one really knew its history; it
was sold on closure of the church and went to the USA. If any visitor
to the site knows more of its origins or of its present whereabouts,
please send an e-mail. The attempt to keep it in England is a story,
can be read elsewhere (see below).
If Snetzler were alive today, he would probably be in the
used-car trade. When asked by churchwardens what their existing
organ would be worth in part-exchange for a new one, he is said
to have replied "If you spend a £100 on it, it'll fetch
£50."
D.Bridgeman-Sutton,
2002.
If you want to learn the fate of this organ,
read on:...
David writes:
* Postscript (November 2004): Thanks to an enquiry from Graham Bartholemew and research by Althea, it has been established that this organ did not leave its native shores. It is now in the chapel of Clare College, Cambridge. The specification given above credited it with a non-existent open diapason - otherwise, memory served!
