In 1595, London鈥檚 Levant Company was doing very nicely. Three years earlier,
Queen Elizabeth I had granted its members exclusive rights to trade in a region
that stretched from Venice to Constantinople and around the eastern
Mediterranean to Syria and Lebanon. From there they imported fine silks, richly
patterned carpets and exotic spices. Relations with the Ottoman Empire were good
and the Sultan had awarded the English valuable trade concessions.
But now the Ottoman ruler was dead, and there were no guarantees that his
successor Mehmet III would be so obliging. In London, the company鈥檚 directors
argued about how to keep the new Sultan sweet. They would persuade the Queen to
send him a present鈥攚hich they would pay for. The gift must be rich and
costly and lavishly adorned with gold, silver and precious stones. But to
impress a man of legendary wealth it would also have to astonish and amaze. The
success of the Levant Company might depend on it. The merchants eventually
settled on an organ that played automatically, without the help of human
hands.
Thomas Dallam couldn鈥檛 believe his luck. Dallam was a young organ builder in
late 16th-century England鈥攁 time when there was little call for such
skills. Now Good Queen Bess herself wanted a splendid new organ and he had been
asked to build it. Dallam was excited, if a little surprised by the commission.
The English Church had spent the past half century dismantling its instruments
and selling the pipes for scrap. The process began when Henry VIII fell out with
the Pope and decided to reform the Church. Under Elizabeth, the Church had grown
yet more puritanical and almost all the remaining organs had gone. So why did
the Queen want an organ now? Paid for by the powerful Levant Company, which
traded in the eastern Mediterranean, it was to be a gift to the new Turkish
Sultan, Mehmet III, the ruler of the Ottoman Empire.
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The governor of the Levant Company, Richard Stapers, specified that what the
merchants wanted was 鈥渁 new instrument of extraordinary kind, and endowed with
various motions, both musical and of other special use, such as for the rarity
and art therein used may render it fit to be sent from her Majesty to any Prince
or Potentate whatever.鈥� The machine was to be part clock, part musical
instrument. Stapers drew up a contract for the work with Randolph Bull, the
Queen鈥檚 clock maker. Bull would be responsible for the clock but the musical
part needed a craftsman with very different skills. Dallam was called in.
Work didn鈥檛 start until 1597鈥攖wo years into the new Sultan鈥檚
reign鈥攁nd took more than a year to complete. The great clock-organ, taller
than two tall men, had a keyboard and could be played the traditional way. But
it could also play automatically. Dallam鈥檚 instrument was a barrel organ, one of
the first ever made. When the clock struck a designated hour, it set in motion a
metal cylinder fitted with stiff pegs. As the barrel revolved, the pegs pressed
against levers that operated the valves of the organ pipes鈥攑laying the
tunes programmed on the cylinder. With the aid of a complicated system of
bellows and wires, wheels and pinions, the organ would continue to play until it
reached the end of its repertoire. There was more. The pins and wires also
operated some entertaining extras鈥攕inging birds, trumpeting figures and
even orbiting planets.
At the beginning of 1599, the organ was ready. The Queen mentions it in a
letter dated 31 January: 鈥淗ere is a great and curious present going to the great
Turk which no doubt wilbe much talked of.鈥� In February, the instrument was
dismantled, packed into crates and loaded onto the ship Hector, bound for
Constantinople. Dallam went with it to make sure the present made the right
impression on the Sultan. What happened next was more or less forgotten until
1893, when Dallam鈥檚 diary鈥攂ought some 40 years earlier by the British
Museum鈥攚as finally published.
The outward journey was eventful. The Hector survived a terrible storm, ran
aground twice and was attacked by pirates. But the worst moments came when the
ship reached Constantinople鈥攁nd the organ was unpacked. Under the watchful
eyes of the English ambassador and local members of the Levant Company, Dallam
wrenched the lid off the first crate. There was a powerful smell of mould. The
wooden parts and the straw packed around them were badly mildewed. Closer
inspection revealed that some of the wooden joints had worked loose. 鈥淭he
extremetie of the heete in the hould of the shipe, with the workinge of the sea
. . . was the cause that all glewinge fayled,鈥� wrote Dallam. A few wooden panels
were cracked and some of the fancy paintwork was blistered. Even the organ pipes
had suffered from the buffeting on the voyage. Some were only slightly dented
but a few were more badly battered.
The merchants were horrified. But Dallam promised to restore the organ to its
original glory. All that was needed was a spot more glue, a lick of paint and
some careful hammering on the pipes to smooth out the dents. In the end he and
his assistants had to make two new pipes. But 10 days later Dallam was
installing the organ in the Great Turk鈥檚 palace. Just before the Sultan arrived
to inspect the English Queen鈥檚 great gift, the organ-builder swung the minute
hand of the clock round so that the mechanism would spring into action
immediately the Ottoman entourage swept into the room.
To their dismay, the Englishmen were hustled out and had to listen to events
from outside the door. To Dallam鈥檚 relief, everything went well. 鈥淔irste the
clocke strouke 22; than The chime of 16 bels went of, and played a songe of 4
partes. That beinge done, tow personagis which stood upon to corners of the
second storie, houldinge tow silver trumpetes in there handes, did lifte them to
theire heades, and sounded a tantarra. Than the muzicke went of, and the orgon
played a song of 5 partes twyse over. In the tope of the orgon, being 16 foute
hie, did stande a holly bushe full of blacke birds and thrushis, which at the
end of the musick did singe and shake their wynges.鈥�
Delighted, the Sultan demanded a repeat performance. Then, intrigued by the
ghostly movements of the keys, he wanted to know if the organ could be played
with real hands on the keyboard. Dallam was ushered in. He was terrified because
to play meant turning his back on the Sultan, 鈥渨hich no man, in paine of deathe,
myghte dow鈥�. The Sultan sat so close that when he shifted position to see
Dallam鈥檚 hands better, he knocked against him. Dallam鈥檚 heart stopped. 鈥淚
thought he had been drawinge his sorde to cut of my head,鈥� he confessed
later.
But Dallam kept his head. The Sultan was impressed and the Levant Company was
content. When the Queen died in 1603 and the Church began to order new organs
for its cathedrals, Dallam鈥檚 was the name everyone remembered.