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João Vaz, Dinarte Machado The English presence The English presence in Madeira, evident above all during the course of the 19th century, had a number of repercussions in cultural life. One of the signs of this influence was the importation of a significant number of organs built in England, which were installed in various churches on the Island. The aim of this tour is to present two of the English instruments that survive today in Funchal: the organ of the Church of São Pedro, a small instrument build by the firm of Flight & Robinson and which survives in very nearly original condition, and the organ of the Cathedral of Funchal, an instrument of larger dimensions, originally built by T.A. Samuel and which has undergone many transformations up to the present day. The tour will reveal some of the characteristics of the way these two instruments function, as well as the possibility of hearing works specially adapted for them. |
Tuesday, 13 October, 11.00, a.m. Participants
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João Vaz Born in Lisbon, João Vaz holds a doctorate in music and musicology from the University of Évora, where his thesis was entitled The organ works of Brother José Marques e Silva (1782-1837) and the end of the organ tradition in Portugal during the Ancien Regime, written under the supervision of Rui Vieira Nery. He holds a diploma in organ from the Higher School of Music of Lisbon, where he studied under Antoine Sibertin-Blanc, and from the Higher Conservatory of Music of Aragon in Zaragoza, where he studied with José Luis González Uriol, on a grant from the Gulbenkian Foundation, and also has a licentiate in architecture from the Technical University of Lisbon. He has been extremely active internationally, both as performer and teacher on organ courses. He has made over ten solo recordings, especially on historical Portuguese instruments. As performer and musicologist he has concentrated particularly on Portuguese sacred music, founding in 2006 the ensemble Capella Patriarchal, which he directs. His publications include articles that concentrate above all on Portuguese keyboard music, he currently teaches organ at the Higher School of Music in Lisbon, having also taught at the Gregorian Institute of Lisbon, the University of Évora and the School of Arts of the Portuguese Catholic University. Founder of the International Organ Festival of Lisbon in 1998, he is currently artistic director of the concert series that take place using the six organs of the Basilica of the Palace of Mafra (to whose restoration he was permanent consultant) and of the historical organ of the Church of São Vicente de Fora, in Lisbon (of which he became titular organist in 1997). |
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Music has been part of Dinarte Machado’s life from an early age, and his first experience of pipe organs was at the age of twenty, on account of the urgent necessity of restoring the organ of the Church of St George, in the Northeast, on the island of S. Miguel, where he grew up. In 1987 he set up a workshop in Ponta Delgada, concentrating exclusively on organ building, undertaking his first restoration, that of the Church of Ribeira Grande, on S. Miguel. There followed other restorations in the Azores, Madeira, mainland Portugal and Spain, and to date he has carried out seventy-seven restorations of historical organs, the great majority of them Portuguese, from the second half of the 18th century, in which field he is a specialist. In the field of organ building, he has constructed some small instruments for study and has built nine larger organs, such as that made for the Church of the Colégio in Funchal. He published inventories of the organs of the Azores and Madeira. In 1993, he worked in Spain with the master organ builder Gerhard Grenzing, on the restoration of the historic organ of the Royal Palace in Madrid. At the International Congress in Mafra in 1994, he demonstrated the existence of differences between Spanish and Portuguese organs from the second half of the 18th century onwards. He was responsible for the restoration of the six organs of the Basilica of Mafra, built during the reign of King John VI, a set unique in the world, and which represents the apogee of Portuguese organ building. The work was begun on 15 May 2010, and given a Europa Nostra Prize on 1 June 2012. In July 2010 he was awarded the Order of Merit by the President of the Portuguese Republic. In 2014 he has finished the restoration of the largest organ built in Portugal, the historic organ of the Monastery of Lorvão. |
Dinarte MachadoNotes about the Organ
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The organ of the church of São Pedro was obtained in England from the firm Flight & Robson in the 19th century. We have no documentation relating to its construction but we may place it as before 1878, when the firm was bought by Gray & Davison. We know equally little of the exact date of the installation of the instrument in the church, but in two inventories (1838, 1841) there is reference to an organ “of which much use is made” placed in the choir gallery, which point to the present instrument (AHDF Inventário: 3). In the course of the 20th century, the organ underwent various repairs, as a result of which, among other things, the pitch and tuning were altered, without, however, causing any significant damage to the original state of the instrument. In August 1904, in the course of a campaign to make improvements to the choir gallery of the church, the Benefice took advantage of the opportunity to have the organ repaired, the restoration being undertaken by Alfredo Saturnino Lino. We know that the work to the organ, as to all the rest, took a short time, for in a note signed 6 August 1904, the builder stated that the work "should be finished by the middle of the present month". The works actually finished on 25 August; all told, the work to the choir gallery and organ cost 150,000 réis, to which the District General Council contributed the sum of 50,000 réis, given over entirely to the repairs to the organ. Apparently, this work was a one-off intervention, for only two years later, the newspaper Heraldo da Madeira, on 15 November 1906, reported that the organ of the church of São Pedro was once more under repair. In 2006 a full restoration was undertaken by Dinarte Machado. Manual (GG, AA, C, D-f’’’) |
Church of São Pedro, Funchal|
At Funchal Cathedral, the presence of an organ can be documented from the very beginning of the 16th century. In 1739 King João V gave the Cathedral a new organ made in Lisbon by the organ builder Francisco do Rego Matos. In 1740 the Chapter had this instrument placed in the original gallery, placed in a recess above the former sacristy, situated to the left of the sanctuary (Ferreira 1963: 18-19). No longer in working order, this organ was dismantled in 1925 and eleven years later given to the Igreja do Colégio. In its place the Cathedral Chapter decided to buy the organ that belonged at that time to the Anglican Church. The minutes of the Chapter meeting of 5 January 1937 mentions “that by order of His Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord, the Bishop had bought the present organ belonging to the Anglican Church, the price of which was thirty-four contos and five hundred escudos (34,500 escudos), added to which the cost of transport, reassembly, etc.”, and that it was placed in the choir gallery at the main entrance of the Cathedral. This instrument, much altered since then, was built in England in 1884, having been ordered by an English doctor who resided in Madeira and also played the organ. At a certain point, this doctor had decided to give it to the Anglican Church. The organ had resulted from the collaboration of various builders, though T. A Samuel (Organ Builder, Montague Road, Dalston-London) was responsible in 1884 for assembly in situ. The pipes – or, rather, some of them – were made by the firm Charles S. Robson (1861), the windchests by Wilson Gunnerson, the manual by the firm S. W. Browne and some of the metal pipes were the work of the company A. Speneir (1884). Originally using tracker action, some thirty years ago the instrument was considerably altered, with changes made to the mechanism and the addition of a number of reed stops en chamade. These modifications have completely altered the organ’s character, without making any kind of improvement from a musical point of view. As a result of this, and with the intention of endowing the Cathedral with an instrument appropriate for liturgical purposes and for concert work, major restoration to the instrument was undertaken and completed in 1995/96 by Dinarte Machado. I Manual (C-g’’’) II Manual (C-g’’’) Pedal (C-g’’’) Couplers
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Funchal´s Cathedral