In England
Organs were used in England from the twelfth century. In the fifteenth century, their use spread from cathedrals to abbeys, priories and collegiate chapels. Even some large parish churches, especially in London, had organs. From surviving evidence, it seems that these instruments were rather small ones, mainly used to accompany the singing. After the Reformation in the sixteenth century, organs were gradually frowned upon and removed or destroyed all around England. Then, in the 1630s and 1640s, there was a brief interlude of high church revival under the influence of archbishop William Laud, a period during which new organs were built, the most famous organ-builder then being Robert Dallam. However, this revival was only short-lived, for between 1642 and 1660 the Civil War and ensuing Commonwealth brought organ-building to a stand-still. In 1644 a ‘Lords and Commons Ordnance’ ordered:
the speedy demolishing of all organs, images and all matters of superstitious monuments in all Cathedrals, and Collegiate and or Parish-Churches and Chapels, throughout the Kingdom of England and the Dominion of Wales, the better to accomplish the blessed reformation so happily begun and to remove offences and things illegal in the worship of God.
Organs, considered to be synonymous with popery or superstition, were dismantled or ‘defaced.’ Sometimes, the local people or the church or cathedral staff would take down the pipes to hide them in a safe place. But more often than not, the instruments were utterly destroyed, so that today hardly anything remains of organs built before the Restoration. Therefore what the instruments known by Bull, Byrd, Tomkins or Tallis sounded like can be only conjectural.
Organ-building was resumed after the Restoration of Charles II in 1660. Various elements then concurred to enable the rise of a new, distinctive type of instrument which was to remain more or less unchanged in its essentials until the end of the eighteenth century. First, some pre-Commonwealth national characteristics (for instance, the high proportion of wooden pipes, or the fashion of decorated front pipes) were retained, for some organ-builders who had worked before the Civil-Wars, such as the Dallams, were still around. Secondly, there was an influence from the continent, through organ-builders such as the Dutch-born Bernard Smith (Flutes, Sesquialtera) or the French-born Renatus Harris (bold reed stops, Cornet). Thirdly, the role imparted to the organ in the Anglican liturgy encouraged the development of some specific tonal characteristics. Organs (or, for that matter, musical instruments in general) are not abstract constructs, but tools the characteristics of which stem from, and depend on particular requirements and functions. Notably, the role of the English organ as an instrument used primarily for accompaniment explains the development of the chorus based upon the solid foundation of the Diapasons.
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