The first
appearance of the English organ in Russia is historically documented
as in the time of Queen Elizabeth. It was in 1586 that the English
Ambassador Gerome Gorsey recorded in his diary the purchase of an
organ and various clavichords built in England for the Tsaritsa
Irina Fyodorovna, the sister of Boris Godunov (who reigned 1598--1605).
From the
time of Peter the Great (1682--1725), who took a lively interest
in western European culture, organs became widespread, especially
in foreign churches, which were built throughout the country. English
organ builders installed instruments in the Anglican churches in
St Petersburg (1753, rebuilt by Giacomo Quarenghi in 1814), Moscow,
Archangel, etc.. Towards the end of the 1770s the Tsaritsa Catherine
II (1762--1796) commissioned an organ from Samuel Green (1740--1796),
presumably for Prince Potyomkin in St Petersburg.
The sole
English organ which has survived in its original form, and which
was still playable in the mid 1950s, is the Brindley and Foster
organ (1877, II/P/23) in the English church in St Petersburg. There
had been two more Brindley and Foster organs in the English churches
in Moscow (II/P/19) and Kronstadt (1875), but they were completely
destroyed during the imposition of the 'new culture' in the USSR.
Thus by
the 1990s in Russia there were no instruments for the authentic
performance of the English organ repertoire, as well as no place
where one could broaden his knowledge by and in the use of the modern
English organ console.
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