It has long been said that Handel
played Trinity’s organ in
England before it arrived in
Newport. Presented to Trinity by the
Rev. George Berkeley, D.D. through the Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge, the organ was completed by renowned builder,
Richard
Bridge, in
London in July 1733. Shipping
arrangements were made by mid-October, and the instrument arrived in
Newport in February 1734 on ship
owned by Godfrey Malbone, a Trinity parishioner.1
George Frideric Handel once
wrote of Bridge in 1749, “I very well approve of Mr. Bridge who without any
Objection is a very good Organ Builder.” 2
Handel’s knowledge of Bridge’s work leads us to believe that, when Henry Newman,
secretary of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, wrote, “[The organ]
has been touched and approved by some of the most eminent Masters in
London
...,” he might have been
referring, in part, to Handel.
Aside from a brief visit to
Oxford in June and July of 1733, Handel would
have been in
London
to try the organ after its
completion. And it is very likely that he did. Even today, organ and harpsichord
builders will contact prominent local musicians to try out new instruments
before they are passed on to their purchasers.
Today, a few
relics of the original instrument are in tact. The center facade
of the current instrument is original. (The wings were added by Providence
architect Norman Isham
around 1926.) Some of the central facade pipes, part of the original Bridge
organ, will sound if blown through. They are not, however, part of the current
working instrument by Wicks (1973)
. We are very fortunate that the original console (i.e., keyboard and
stops, pictured left) is preserved and currently on display at the
Newport
Historical Society’s
Museum of Newport History.
3
Trinity
Church’s first organist was
Charles Theodore Pachelbel (1690-1750), son of
Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706). It is not known when
Theodore, baptized as Carl Theodorus, came to the
New World. We do know that he was working in
Boston when he was called by the wardens of
this church in 1733 to oversee the installation and tuning of the organ. He
liked it so much he stayed for two years. From there,
he moved to
New York where he gave a public
performance off his Magnificat for
double choir. That concert, at 6:00 pm on January 21, 1736, is notable in that
it is the first public record of a concert given in the
New
World. Theodore eventually settled in
Charleston,
South Carolina, where he worked at
St. Philip’s Church. His death year, incidentally, is the same as that of Johann
Sebastian Bach. 4
Trinity's choir plays an important role in weekly and special liturgies. In addition to leading the congregation in hymnody, the choir praises God through the singing of excellent choral music.