BBC Radio 3 this Sunday evening provided a rather unusual account of a fascinating masterpiece of an organ sent from the England of Queen Elizabeth I when England was a relatively small European nation (as it returned to be by the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II), a trip to "whip-roaring" exciting Turkey, impressing the then most powerful man in the world, Ottoman Sultan Mehmet III to the extent that the relatively humble maker of the masterpiece, Thomas Dallam, sees what some of the great grendees of the time would not see, potentially fatal frightening intimate closeness to the Sultan and his harem with its inhabitants who look like men at first sight.... but later the masterpiece is smashed into pieces by barbarous successors to the Sultan, not much different to the fate of the English organ makers masterpieces in England under "Reformation"... A refreshing reminder of the surprising details of the world, giving us both despair and hope!
