Mayer also placed trapdoors in the roof of the cabin, thus providing the carillonneur with a balanced sound. In order to allow the performer to practice without disturbing the neighborhood, a practice instrument with an identical keyboard and pedalboard was installed in the playing cabin, whose keys were attached to metal chimes.
And to protect the bells from weather, movable wooden shutters were installed in the openings of the tower. In the s, under the direction of Daniel Robins, the third University Carillonneur, several changes were made to the installation. First, it was noted that having a practice keyboard in the playing cabin steps up the tower was not an ideal situation.
The practice keyboard was therefore disassembled and reassembled in a new space in the lower level of the Chapel, a development for which successive generations of carillon students have been particularly grateful. At the same time, the movable wooden shutters had become warped and immobile, and were replaced by stationary angled louvers. Finally, after three decades of use, many of the soft iron clappers had become flattened from repeatedly striking the harder bronze bells.
To remedy this, their flat shanks were turned degrees in order to once again present a round surface to the bell. By the s, several factors were adversely affecting the instrument. Founders were under constant pressure to expand bell ranges. By the seventeenth century it was possible to make and tune sets up to three and one-half octaves. The art of carillon playing originated nearly years ago in the area of Europe that now comprises the Netherlands, Belgium, and northern France.
It is there that the greatest concentration of carillons can still be found, with close to instruments in use. The intense interest for bells spawned incentive for technical progress. Bell makers sought the utmost perfection in tuning and timbre. The craft of bell making attained its highest status in the Netherlands, and the services of the Dutch founders were sought far and wide. Initially, both worked independently until they were commissioned to cast and deliver a carillon to the town of Zutphen in , which, after extensive studies.
The carillon they created brought the Hemony brothers to the forefront of carillon production in the Netherlands. They settled in Zutphen until From to , they worked again together in Amsterdam. In all, they had produced 51 carillons, of which about thirty have survived, most of them only in part.
Through painstaking research, the Hemony brothers became expert craftsmen and accomplished metallurgists.
I order to improve bell tuning they sought the assistance of musicians capable of advising them on matters of timbre and especially the inner tuning of the bells. They found the most influential bell expert they ever could wish for in Jonkheer Jacob van Eyck , the blind organist, carillonneur and recorder player, composer of the famous Der Fluyten Lust-Ho f and director of the carillons in Utrecht.
After the famed French music theorist Marin Mersenne — had discovered the overtones of a string, it was Jacob van Eyck who first understood how to systematically analyze the overtones of a bell. For details about a bell's pitches and overtones see below "The shape and acoustics of a bell". Van Eyck demonstrated his method with a wine glass by whistling at the pitch of the fundamental or one of the overtones of the glass, which, in the case the whistled note was conform with one of those tones, began to resonate at that tone, thereby producing a sound.
But while the scientists sought for a physical explanation of this mysterious phenomenon Van Eyck put it to use by making a practical link to the comparison of the overtones which he had been made to sound individually.
He came to the conclusion that by altering the bell's profile, their tunes could be controlled. This was the first time in the history of bell founding that concrete and measurable information concerning bell notes was related to the measurements of the bell's profile.
Both traveled independently around Western Europe casting bells until eventually they arrived at Zutphen in the Netherlands. There they made a number of carillons that attracted immediate interest, and their bells were soon recognized as vastly superior in quality to all previous ones. Their success was well deserved, and their fame spread. Not only were they expert craftsmen, taking great pride in their work, but they were blessed with keen ears for music.
Painstaking research had resulted in their becoming accomplished metallurgists, and they were knowledgeable as well in the system of tuning, called mean-tone temperament, prevalent at the time. Following their scholarly inclination, they sought the assistance of musicians capable of advising them on matters of timbre and tuning, with special emphasis on the inner tuning of bells. The Hemonys' most influential consultant was Jacob van Eyck, a blind organist, carillonneur, and composer of Utrecht.
Together they experimented with profiles and systems of tuning, using as scientific an approach as possible. They developed a series of tuned bars, called stavenspels, against which they checked their bells. Their results still serve today as a standard for makers of fine bells, although equal temperament has now replaced the mean tone. From to these talented brothers, working either alone or together, cast some fifty carillons. During times of war, when bell making had to be suspended, they turned to the manufacture of guns and cannons.
Both, in fact, had been appointed municipal bell and gun makers for the city of Amsterdam, which became their final home. Today the name of Hemony is as much associated with fine bells as is Stradivarius with fine violins. The Hemony brothers may have come into contact with Van Eyck during their studies for the commissioned carillon in Zutphen , since Van Eyck was serving there as advisor for the municipality.
Together they experimented with bell profiles and systems of tuning. Van Eyck established the best pattern of partial tones to constitute such a chord that would be heard as a unity at the moment the bell is struck. This "tone" he called slagtoon the strike note which defines the pitch of the bell. The Hemonys appropriated Van Eyck's findings and developed from them a method of tuning. Consequentially, they cast their bells somewhat thicker than necessary.
Afterward, the bell was placed on a lathe and the correct sound was attained by removing material from the proper parts of the bell's interior surface. This method of bell-tuning has remained the most customary until the present day. The Hemonys not only produced the purest euphonious bells of their time but were also the first to make chromatic carillons and extend their compass to more than three octaves. Thus, they developed the carillon into a complete musical instrument. Unfortunately, after the death of the Hemony brothers Pieter died in no one was capable of attaining the same quality in bell founding and particularly in tuning, including their pupils except perhaps Claes Noorden and Melchior de Haze, probably a Hemony pupil.
Apart from the lack in true talent for bell founding, the decline of quality may have been due to the fact that the Hemonys, like other founders, jealously kept their art of tuning in secrecy together with the physical composition of the bronze , later even called the "bell-founders" secret. The death of Witlockx in , certainly the most important founder of the time, marked the end of a true Golden Age of carillon history. In the second half of the eighteenth century, only Andreas Jozef van den Gheyn, from the renowned bell founding family in Leuven, cast a number of good carillons; lighter in weight than those of the Hemonys, and higher in pitch.
He was the last bell maker steeped in the art of tuning, and with his death in , this art died too. With the French Revolution and the occupation of Europe by Napoleon that followed, many carillons were requisitioned in order to obtain material for casting cannons.
In addition, the carillon declined in importance with the evolution of the bourgeois musical culture, which took place mainly in concert halls and private salons.
The carillon's time-keeping function had also been superseded by the perfection of indoor clocks and pocket watches. Nevertheless the carillon never entirely vanished from the daily life in Holland and Flanders, and the traditional post of the municipal carillonneur was maintained by most of the towns.
Listen here MP3 audio-file of:. Jef Denyn plays his Ongeschreven Preludium in d. Recorded c. From the lexicographical entries and remarks in the scholarly literature, it transpires that authors disagree about what carillon actually is. Sets of between fifteen and twenty-two bells with a keyboard, built before , should be called historical carillons.
Sets of fewer bells should not be featured in the World Carillon Federation status at all, nor should automated carillons, which are numerous worldwide. The definition proposed in by Luc Rombouts is consistent with that of the World Carillon Federation, though the author explicitly mentions a set of bells played by the carillonneur or carillonist only in the latter half of his text.
However, in his description employs no such term. Two types of bell sets are distinguished: the carillon Glockenspiel and the manual carillon Handgespieltes Glockenspiel. The former type includes tuned automated bells spanning one or several octaves, while the latter, tuned bells ordered chromatically spanning two octaves or more, played from a baton keyboard. The precise definition of the carillon is not made easier by monographic works on instruments or by those on musical automata. Some of those writings show their authors in difficulty in defining their subject matter.
A good example is Curt Sachs. The above examples confirm my initial opinion that authors essentially disagree on what carillon exactly is. I believe a definition should be given where the definiens part emphasises the two existing types that differ by way of sound generator. My proposal, therefore, is the following definition:. Carillon is a musical instrument or automaton, composed of a set of bells fixed to a permanent structured. In the instrument, sounds are generated by a musician, while in the automaton, by a mechanism.
This definition consciously does not mention the number of bells included in the carillon. This issue is highly problematic, especially when describing historical instruments or automata, so I will abstain from attempting to resolve it. It has not been regulated to date. The lack of a unified nomenclature in the Polish scholarly literature can easily be explained.
Scholars continue to use varying terminology, as binding linguistic norms have not yet emerged and consolidated both in popular and scholarly writing.
Referring to the past, name the pre-war Polish literature, is useless in this case, publications from before are limited to entries in generic lexicons whose natural aim was to address a wide array of meaning for any term.
First and foremost, the term appears in nineteenth-century encyclopaedias, notably in that of Samuel Orgelbrand of and that of Saturnin Sikorski of , as well as several generic dictionaries and lexicons of the interwar period.
More important than that very presence is the definition applied to the term in question. The definition listed by Samuel Orgelbrand is fully consistent with the one I propose:. Carillon, a set of bells of varying dimensions placed in a single row, properly tuned and made to sound via a keyboard device or springs such as cylinders in musical clocks, barrel organs, and so forth, that likely come from this. They were placed on towers of buildings and would customarily made to play tunes on every hour or quarter of an hour.
Carillon, a musical instrument composed of bells appropriately selected and moved through keys or springs.
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