his website is devoted to information about the consort organ: a distinctive type of seventeenth-century English chamber organ that was principally used in conjunction with consorts of viols and violins at the royal court, in aristocratic households, and in other mainly secular contexts during the Jacobean and Stuart periods.

The consort organ and the performance practices associated with it are relatively poorly understood by present-day musicians and listeners despite the significant part the instrument played in English chamber music of the seventeenth century. It was also widely used in supporting domestic devotional vocal music, in the tuition of choristers at cathedral and university choir schools, in the influential university music meetings of the Interregnum, and in the theatres of Jacobean London.

This website seeks to illuminate the organology, contexts and performance practices relating to the consort organ. It reflects the research interests of Dr David Force, a Visiting Fellow in Musicology at the Open University who explores aspects of seventeenth-century English music, focusing particularly on performance practice and the sociological and contextual issues relating to instrumental and keyboard music of the period. His book, The Consort Organ and its Role in Seventeenth-Century Ensemble Music will be published in the Ashgate Historic Keyboard Series in early 2025.

David Force may be contacted regarding matters academic or organ-related at c17organs@gmail.com

Orcid ID: 0009-0004-8835-0909