Intriguing -- perhaps a fabrication?

Karl Petersen
Washington, Illinois

  ---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: jlspeller@stlnet.com (John Speller)(fwd)
To: ORGUE-L@mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk
Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2000 21:18:04 +0000

Subject: Pinchbeck Organ

In the process of moving the office in my house to the basement to free
up a room so that my daughters can have separate bedrooms I came across
the following item which, squirrel-like, I had stashed away some years
previously.  I have no recollection of how I came by it.

From *The Edinburgh Courant*, No. 901, 10 September 1824, p. 9694:

  "London September 5.  This Week his Majesty, with several of the
  Prime Nobility, were entertained at the Castle of Windsor with
  a surprising Musical Machine, contrived and made by Mr. Pinchbeck,
  a celebrated Clock-maker of Fleetstreet, London, which performed
  a Variety of fine Pieces of Music composed by Mr. Hendell [sic.],
  and other Masters upon the Organ, Flute, Flagiolet, German Flute,
  and other Instruments, both Single and in Parts, in such extra-
  ordinary Perfection, that it was generally allowed to be the
  greatest Piece of Art that has yet appear'd in Europe of this Kind;
  and we hear that Mr. Pinchbeck is encouraged to undertake a Machine
  to perform some of the choicest Sonatas and Concertos of Corelli,
  Albinoni and Mr. Hendell, in all their Parts, as well on the
  aforesaid Instruments, as with Trumpets and Kettle Drums, to be set
  in a private Summer-house."

Does anyone know what became of this obviously rather fancy barrel-
organ of 1824 in Windsor Castle, or know anything of Pinchbeck's
projected Summer-House instrument and whether it was ever built?

John Speller