Sunday 17 June 1660

Annotations

• N Pauline on Wed 18 Jun 2003, 12:40am

  “So to my father

• N chip on Wed 18 Jun 2003, 03:13am

  One can only imagine what it was to hear those great beasts, the pipe organs, roar again about the city. The best propaganda there could be. I wonder if the instruments were truly removed or just the consoles. It seems too quick to have reinstalled the pipes and chests. If no one pumped, there was no sound. As for EP, Pauline, I would guess you are right. It still appears to me odd he has not mentioned her more since his return.

• N vincent on Wed 18 Jun 2003, 03:56am

  His services are needed elswhere, I do beleive, reading between these short and to the miniscule point notes, on (yellow Postits of the day) sheets not encased in a cover or leather Briefcase. ‘tis the learning on the run.

• N Larry Bunce on Wed 18 Jun 2003, 05:05am

  The Puritans did not believe in organs at church, or in having fun in any form, it seems. During the Civil War, some organs were stripped of their metal pipes, which were melted down for bullets. It is nice to hear that some organs had survived both vandalism and neglect during the previous decade.
  The pipe organ in recognizably modern form was already 200 years old in 1660.
  Would it be a plot spoiler to mention that these London organs were to last only 6 more years, until the Great Fire?

• N Frank G. on Wed 18 Jun 2003, 09:16am

  Are you sure of that, Larry? If the King was listening to the organ at Whitehall then there seems to me to be no reason to think it was burned during the Fire, which never spread that far.

• N Paul Brewster on Wed 18 Jun 2003, 02:56pm

  Whitehall Organs
  L&M say “[The organ] was recovered through John Playford’s efforts and erected in its old place soon after the Restoration. ‘Father’ Bernard Smith’s new organ there built under John Hingston’s supervision, was apparently completed by October 1662.”

  If I’m reading this note correctly the 1660 organ only had two years to go. The 1662 organ had another 26 years of life. It apparently was destroyed in the Whitehall fire in 1698. Again

• N helena murphy on Wed 18 Jun 2003, 07:25pm

  The freedom,ease and security of the new Restoration London are here conveyed by the stupendous organ music, the flattering portrait of Mrs Butler, the garden and of course the image of the beauties, imitating perhaps the style of the court beauties such as Barbara Villiers,help to illustrate the confidence of a society freed from militant puritanism,civil war, the mob, and authoritarian rule.