In the autumn we will be doing some restoration work on the 1755 Snetzler chamber organ now in the Barber Institute at Birmingham University. It is an almost unaltered example of his work. The only alteration was to replace the keys (by T.R.Willis of The Minories on the eastern edge of the City of London). These very short keys had obviously given trouble, and had been altered by Manders when the organ was sold to the Barber Institute in 1956, possibly doing more harm than good. We will be making new keys in the style of the original, with ebony covered naturals and Snetzler’s characteristic sharps, ebonised fruitwood with a covering of ivory. We will also put rollers under the organ, instead of the very effective and amazingly ugly wheels.
