ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, March 13, 1997 TAG: 9703130022
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NORFOLK
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Restoring the organ to playing condition would cost another $10,000, but would it ever sound again as it did in the 1600s?
Experts from around the world have suggested a meeting at historic St. Luke's Church, built in 1632, to decide the future of an English chamber organ built about the same time.
The meeting may decide whether the organ - with wooden pipes in perfect condition but bellows deteriorated from time and moisture - will be restored to play again. Some say the organ is the oldest instrument of its kind in America, perhaps the oldest in the world.
The second phase of the organ's restoration neared an end Saturday, when art conservator Davis Goist of Raleigh, N.C., brought home the instrument's painted cabinet doors depicting biblical scenes.
``When conserving something that has been used, you respect the history of that use and don't try to discourage it,'' Goist explained as he stood near the church's altar, where the organ has sat since it came to St. Luke's in 1957.
Goist, on the conservation committee for the International Council of Museums, was selected by John Watson, a Colonial Williamsburg curator, to do the job.
St. Luke's curator, Richard Austin, said he hopes to have the pipes back in place by June, when Barbara Owen, a consultant on historic musical instruments for the Smithsonian Institution, comes to Smithfield to lecture on the organ.
Until Owen heard about it and became involved in researching its history, church officials knew only that the organ was shipped there from England when the church was restored in the 1950s.
Owen discovered that it came from Hunstanton Hall in Norfolk, England, the home of Nicholas and Roger LeStrange, brothers accomplished on the viol, a six-stringed instrument popular in the 16th and 17th centuries. Chamber organs like the one at St. Luke's typically accompanied the viol.
A prolific composer of viol music, John Jenkins, lived and taught at Hunstanton Hall for 16 years. Owen discovered that the organ was listed on a LeStrange family inventory in 1630. Most agree that the composer probably used the St. Luke's organ.
Through a national fund-raising effort, the organ committee of the church's board has raised nearly $7,000 to pay for the artwork's restoration, which will cost a total of about $10,000.
The question now, Austin said, is whether to restore the organ to playing condition for another $10,000. The debate is over whether the organ would ever sound again as it did in the 1600s.
Meanwhile, the church has taken extra precautions to protect the priceless instrument. The system that controls temperature and humidity has been tied into the security system.
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