The new organ is the sixth in the line of important organs at Yale’s Institute for Sacred Music, which also includes a transposable continuo organ, also by Taylor and Boody, built in 2004, in the Great Hall. A series of inaugural recitals on the new, mean-tone instrument is scheduled for October. Mean-tone tuning, the most prevalent temperament of the 17th and 18th centuries, was characterized by very pure thirds and fifths, but led to difficulties in music with many accidentals, such as J.S. Bach’s.

Equal temperament was the controversial resolution. For more information on Yale’s new organ installation, including an excellent scrapbook of photographs, go to

http://www.yale.edu/ism/events/MarquandOrgan.html