Carillon Facts
The History
The carillon is historically a folk instrument, usually placed in prominent public locations such as town squares or churches and played on civil and religious holidays as well as on market days and for local celebrations. Since the Bronze Age bells have been created and played by man, but it was only in the 1600's that the process of producing accurately tuned bells was first discovered.
Throughout history, bell casting has been linked with the business of weapon making: because cannons and bells are cast from the same metal, bell founders could prosper during war time by melting down bells in order to produce cannons. Then after the fighting was over, these men could turn their attention to replacing the bells destroyed or melted down for weapons during the war.
Most early bell founders traveled from place to place to ply their trade, usually moving their equipment to the location where the bells would ultimately hang and digging a hole on site for a casting pit. This not only solved the problem of transporting the large bells once they were ready to be installed, it also gave these traveling founders the opportunity to meet others of their trade as they traveled. This contact brought about a shared knowledge and familiarity with different techniques which proved valuable in the search for better bell quality.
Finally, in the mid-1600's, Pieter and Francois Hemony, itinerant bell-founders and brothers born in Lorraine, France, rose to prominence. Working together with Jacob van Eyck, a blind organist and carillonneur, they discovered a reliable method for tuning bells which ushered in the "golden age" of the carillon. This system of tuning involved the location of five nodes on the bell profile which create individually distinct notes of the harmonic series.
Using their hard-won knowledge, these brothers cast approximately fifty carillons over a period of 34 years, installing the first one in Zutphen, The Netherlands, in 1652. Unfortunately, the Hemony brothers took their knowledge with them to the grave and after their passing the secret of accurate tuning was lost for over two centuries.
The intervening years brought a decline in bell founding; a decline made worse during the French Revolution, during which time many bells were used to make cannons and at least two-thirds of all carillons were destroyed. Deterioration of the surviving carillons and the overall inferiority of new bells compared to their predecessors lowered the quality of carillon playing in general. This led to a loss of public interest in the carillon which hit its lowest point in the nineteenth century.
The late 1800's marked a new beginning for the world of the carillon when an English clergyman and bell ringer by the name of A.B. Simpson arrived on the scene. Curious about the reason for the poor quality of sound in English ringing bells, Canon Simpson began experiments to investigate the subject and ultimately rediscovered the tuning secrets lost with the death of the Hemony brothers. In 1895 and 1896 he published two articles explaining the principles of five point tuning which were soon adopted by English bell founders, who quickly moved to the forefront of bell founding in the modern age, producing bells which consistently outstripped the quality and sound of 15th century bells.
The early twentieth century saw great advances in the carillon world. In addition to a striking increase in carillon installations, this century produced more original material composed for the carillon than in all previous centuries combined. Finally, although today the greatest concentration of carillons is still found in Belgium, The Netherlands, northern France, and northwest Germany, carillons can be found on almost every continent in the world.
The Bells
A carillon bell is cast from bell bronze - an alloy of 78% copper and 22% tin. This metal is heated to over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit and then poured into a mold consisting of a two parts: the core, or interior shape of the bell, and the cope, or exterior shape of the bell.
The bell is cast slightly thick, and after casting is placed open side up on a vertical boring mill for tuning. Using the five point tuning principles, metal is cut from the inside surface of the bell to adjust five partial tones:
The hum tone, or lowest pitched partial;
The prime tone, also called the strike note, which is an octave above the hum tone and the most prominent tone sounded when the bell is struck;
The tierce, a minor third above the prime tone. This is a tone unique to bells which lends them their haunting sound;
The quint, which is a fifth above prime;
And the nominal, an octave above the prime or two octaves above the hum tone.
Due to this combination of tones, a single carillon bell has five pitches tuned in relation to each other to form one sound. Most carillon bells are tuned to a minor third, but in recent years a new type of bell, cast in a "Coke bottle" shape and tuned to a major third, has been introduced. These "major third" bells have a brighter sound than traditional carillon bells. Once the bell is tuned at the foundry, it needs no further tuning
The Instrument
The traditional carillon is an instrument consisting of at least 23 bells; a keyboard arranged somewhat like that of an organ, including foot pedals; and the connecting wires used to attach the keys and pedals to the bells above.
Carillon bells are stationary mounted on a steel or wooden frame on a bell deck above the playing cabin. Only the clappers move during play, and their playing action is controlled by the carillonneur at the keyboard.
The carillon's keys are sometimes referred to as "batons" because of their size and shape. The manual keyboard can range from two to six octaves and is played with loosely closed fists. The pedal keys, played with the feet, usually have a one to two octave range.
The motion of the keys is transferred to the bells via stainless steel transmission wires. The length of this system of wires can be adjusted by the carillonneur with turnbuckles located above the keyboard. The transmission wires are attached to the bell clappers and hold the clappers approximately two inches from the bell wall.
This system of mechanical action allows a range of expression not available with an electronic system and enables the player to vary phrasing and sound dynamics purely by touch.
General
Carillons range in size from 23 to 77 bells: instruments with fewer than 23 bells are considered chimes. The largest bell in a carillon is called the bourdon bell: the largest carillon bell in the world is housed in the Rockefeller carillon in Riverside Church, New York City, weighing in at over 40,000 lbs. The largest carillon with respect to number of bells is in Kirk-in-the-Hills, Michigan - this instrument boasts 77 bells! Some of the oldest carillon bells in existence are found in St. Rombaut's Cathedral in Mechlin, Belgium, three of which were cast in 1480, 1498, and 1515.
There are presently 179 fixed-location traditional carillons in North America today. In addition, one North American traveling carillon exists: Cast in Bronze, a 35-bell carillon mounted on a custom frame. The Brownell Memorial Park Carillon is the only carillon in the state of Louisiana.
