Singing Bronze: A History of Carillon MusicThe fascinating history of bell music The carillon, the world’s largest musical instrument, originated in the 16th century when inhabitants of the Low Countries started to produce music on bells in church and city towers. Today, carillon music still fills the soundscape of cities in Belgium and the Netherlands. Since the First World War, carillon music has become popular in the United States, where it adds a spiritual dimension to public parks and university campuses. Singing Bronze opens up the fascinating world of the carillon to the reader. It tells the great stories of European and American carillon history: the quest for the perfect musical bell, the fate of carillons in times of revolt and war, the role of patrons such as John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Herbert Hoover in the development of American carillon culture, and the battle between singing bronze and carillon electronics. Richly illustrated with original photographs and etchings, Singing Bronzetells how people developed, played, and enjoyed bell music. With this book, a fascinating history that is yet little known is made available for a wide public. |
Contents
The time of | 39 |
chapter 4 | 49 |
A new musical instrument | 59 |
Carillon music in a divided land | 71 |
Bells as commodity | 78 |
Pure bells | 85 |
Pieter Hemony | 91 |
Carillon music at the court | 97 |
New carillons in other parts of the world | 225 |
New carillon construction in the Old Country 229 Belgian and English influence in the Netherlands | 229 |
Protectionist reflexes in Belgium | 231 |
Malaise among the Belgian bellfounders | 235 |
Belgian carillons in the United States | 238 |
The Mechelen carillon school during the interwar period | 240 |
The bells fight with us 249 Nazi bells | 249 |
Carillon music in occupied territory | 251 |
Carillons for the young Prussians | 103 |
The Bach of the carillon | 109 |
Andreas Jozef Vanden Gheyn talented bellfounder | 115 |
The bells | 121 |
The carillonneurs | 127 |
The audience | 133 |
THE NEW CARILLON | 139 |
Gradual restoration of the bell stock | 145 |
Literary interest in bells and carillons | 152 |
The carillon at the service of nationalism | 158 |
In search of the sound of the past | 165 |
Rediscovery of the art of bell tuning | 173 |
Enchanting Monday evenings | 181 |
An American much interested in carillons | 187 |
The broken bells of Flanders 191 War rages over Belgium | 191 |
The voice of fallen carillons | 195 |
Carillon war in the Netherlands | 200 |
Bells of victory | 205 |
Memorial bells 207 A school for carillonneurs | 207 |
Carillon sounds across the Atlantic | 209 |
Rockefeller and his Belgian carillonneurs | 214 |
The race for bigger and heavier | 218 |
Contours of a new carillon culture | 222 |
The confiscation of bells in Europe | 256 |
Liberation | 263 |
Dutch manufacture versus Carillon Americana 267 The return of the bells | 267 |
Reconstruction in the Low Countries | 271 |
A carillon without bells | 275 |
Carillon battle in the Vatican pavilion | 278 |
Innovations in the Old and the New World 285 American Beauty | 285 |
The American carillon movement | 289 |
Acid rain in Europe | 293 |
Using the computer | 296 |
Carillon music in the East | 305 |
Panorama of the new carillon art 309 The carillons of the world | 309 |
Carillon organizations | 312 |
Carillonneurs and their audience | 314 |
The diversity of carillon music | 318 |
A future for the carillon | 321 |
Sources and acknowledgements | 325 |
Notes | 327 |
| 337 | |
| 351 | |
| 353 | |