CARILLON GAINS POPULARITY INU. U.S. Famous Bells of European | Countries in Use in 15 American Cities. | By the NEW Associated YORK, Press. December 22.-The carillon with clavier as an in instrument in eivic musical education has been pealing from singing towers in continental low countries for hundreds of but it has only lately become years, better known outside the boundaries of its origin. The people of Belgium and Holland accepted the bells as a means of cultivating and teaching a love for folksongs and the great melodies of their fatherland. The carillon has shared its companionship in all the stirring events in the history of these countries, usually at the public charge. In not befew of the towers the carillon has played for a hundred years or more on the same day and at the same hour. While the United States has but 15 sets of the bells in operation, declares William Gorham Rice, who has devoted a great his life to the chronicling of carillons, it nevertheless can boast of the largest in the world. He says no carillon built since the earliest Hemony in 1645 compares in size with the one installed in the Park Avenue Baptist Church here by John D. Rockefeller, jr., in memory of his mother. Offers Carillon to City. outside. Differs From Chime. describes the carillon as characteristic democratic municipal instrument in a book published by Dodd, Mead & Co. August Heckscher, New York philanthropist, has offered to present one of the instruments to the city as a World War memorial if the city will erect a tower In the middle of Central Park in which to house it. The carillon had its origin in a mechanical arrangement sets of small bells in connection with the clocks which in the fifteenth century came to be an essential part of the municipal powers the low o countrles. It was not long before the mechanism was arranged to play a little tune. More satisfactory musical effects were sought as the instrument progressed. When a city bought a carillon formally was welcomed by the burgomaster and people, and amid rejoicings the bells were consecrated with elaborate ceremony. The bells are tuned to intervals of the chromatic scale, the compass being three or more octaves. The lowest bell is often many tons in weight, with each succeeding bell smaller, so that in the highest octaves the weight of each bell is but few pounds. All the bells are hung so as not to swing. They are connected with a keyboard by which the carillonneur (the musician) causes the clapper to strike the inside of the sound bow of the bell. Frequently there also is a clock-work mechanism and a revolving drum which causes hammer to strike the sound bow from the "The carillon is essentially chromatic in its intervals, while the chime is essentially diatonic," says Rice, in distinguishing between the two instruments. "The chromatic characteristic enables a master of a carillon keyboard not only to play the notes of a great variety of music, but to inter. pret its sentiment and to produce effects which are distinctive and peculiarly a property of this instrument. "That a carillon should be in tune is of greater consequence than the number of its bells, because throughout virtually its entire compass the bells progress by regular semitone or chromatic intervals." The carillon is played or. by a musician. The carillonneur automatically uses both hands and feet and differs from organ pedaling, in that the heels are not used. People accustomed to the sound of many bells who cannot "follow the tune" are told by Rice to "relax and simply listen" and they will And that the idiom of the bell music will soon communicate itself with perfect clarity. first modern carillon on the American continent was installed at the Metropolitan Church, Toronto, Rice says, and the first in the United States was in the Church of Our Lady of Good Hope, at Gloucester, Mass. Others are at Andover and Cohasset, Mass.: Birmingham, Ala.; Washington. D. C.: Cranbrook and Detroit, Mich.: Morristown, Plainfield and Princeton. N. J.: St. Paul, Minn.; Notre Dame, Ind.. and Philadelphia. There are 184 of the instruments in existence. |
