Raymond Russell (organologist)
| Raymond Russell | |
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| Born |
Raymond Anthony Russell 27 May 1922 London |
| Died | 17 March 1964 Malta |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | organologist |
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Raymond Anthony Russell, FSA FRHistS, (27 May 1922 – 17 March 1964) was a British organologist and antiquarian. He was an expert on early keyboard instruments, and assembled an important collection which now forms the Raymond Russell Collection of Early Keyboard Instruments of the University of Edinburgh.
Russell was born in London on 27 May 1922, the son of Gilbert Russell, related to the Dukes of Bedford, and his wife Maud Nelke, a noted patron of the arts. The family was rich; from 1934 they lived at Mottisfont Abbey.
In the Second World War Russell initially applied for registration as a conscientious objector, and was formally exempted from combatant service, but changed his mind. He enlisted in the Royal Fusiliers, where he reached the rank of captain. He had already begun collecting keyboard instruments in 1939, before hostilities began.
Over the next twenty years he assembled a considerable collection of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century clavichords and harpsichords. His collection included instruments from all the main harpsichord-building areas of Europe: a number of English spinets; early harpsichords and virginals from Italy; Flemish instruments by the Ruckers; a late French instrument by Pascal Taskin; and a clavichord and harpsichord from North Germany, both by Johann Adolph Hass. Russell was an able harpsichordist, and became an expert organologist. He catalogued the keyboard instrument collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the collection of Benton Fletcher, now in Fenton House.
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