The Belgian viol consort L’Acheron have been recording a CD using the new organ built for them by Goetze & Gwynn, which is based on Dominic Gwynn’s extensive experience of documenting, restoring and copying consort organs. It is splendid to see a project like this taking place and hopefully it will illuminate our understanding of how the consort organ and viols interacted. I am not convinced by the use of the organ, virginals and viols all at once  – I can find no evidence for this at all – but I was intrigued by Francois Joubert-Caillet’s comment that the virginals has tonal similarities to the consort organ: there is some food for thought there! I’m looking forward to the release of the disc – let’s hope it’s not delayed too much by the present distracted times.

Here is a link to a video about the project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRkgXGJ1YBI