Royal Carillon School “Jef Denyn” Museum CATALOG Tiffany Ng 2006 Royal Carillon School “Jef Denyn” Museum CATALOG Tiffany Ng 2006 A Brief History The first exhibition of the Royal Carillon School (KBS) was organized in 1922 in conjunction with three significant events in carillon history: the inauguration of the school itself, the celebration of newly appointed school director Jef Denyn’s thirty-fifth year as city carillonneur of Mechelen, and the first international carillon congress in the world. Sixteen years later, the second exhibition was mounted in 1938. It was a tremendous success: 30,000 people, including King Leopold III and his son Prince Boudewijn, convened in the City Hall of Mechelen for the international event. Several objects from that exhibition are preserved in the current Museum of the Royal Carillon School (MKBS). The Carillon Museum itself was established thirty-three years after that first exhibition, once the school had moved in 1947 from its former building on the Begijnenstraat to its current site in Mechelen and was under the direction of Staf Nees. Antoon Spinoy, president of the KBS Board of Directors from 1947 until his death in 1967, was integral in establishing the museum at its current location. As burgomaster, he acquired the building ‘Het Schip’ at Merodestraat 63 for the school and constructed the MKBS to link the school to the municipal museum, the Stedelijk Museum Hof van Busleyden (SMHB). The interior of the MKBS and the exhibits were constructed with the assistance of R. De Roo, archivist and curator of the municipal museum, and of M. J. De Weert. On 5 June 1955, burgomaster M. J. Smets inaugurated the museum at festivities organized by the society Toren en Beiaard and the Exposition du Tourisme. Campanologist Willy Godenne published the first catalog in Archives, Bibliothèques et Musées de Belgique the following year. Important legacies figured amongst the first holdings of the museum, including collections given by Jef Denyn, Staf Nees, Kamiel Lefévere, Marcel Michiels, Jr., Jos Van Beers, Willy Godenne, Mrs. Albert Geudens, Alfred Ost, Leon Pescheret, and the city of Geraardsbergen. The municipal museum transferred sixteenth-century bronze table bells made in Mechelen to the Carillon Museum’s care, the majority of which came from the collection of noted historian and campanologist Georges Van Doorslaer. Initially, the holdings of the museum were displayed in one room, but the intention from the beginning was to open a second room dedicated to helping visitors understand “the importance of the art of the carillon” and “the characteristics of a good instrument” through graphics, drawings, and paintings (Godenne, Musée 60). After all, the purpose of the museum was not only to be engaging, but also to be instructive. When a second room was finally opened, many more objects were made accessible to visitors, and a now- disappeared map showing the spread of the carillon art worldwide under the title “UITSTRALING VAN ONZE BEIAARDKUNST” revealed both to newcomers to the instrument and to carillonneurs themselves the growing success of their efforts. When Jo i Haazen was appointed the directorship of the KBS in 1981, he redesigned the second room to serve as a meeting and reception room for distinguished visitors, an exhibit space supplemented by photographs of carillons and carillonneurs, and a campanology classroom. His international outreach efforts prompted donations amounting to a new ethnomusicological collection (D and E). And in 1998, the museum reached new heights in attendance with the organization of a jubilee exhibition celebrating Mechelen’s five centuries as a center of the bell arts and coinciding with the 1998 Congress of the World Carillon Federation. But the aforementioned goal of instruction was never truly met by either room. The museum lacks explanatory cards for each object, and artifacts are not arranged to allow explanations of groups of objects through informational posters or during tours, or in fact to allow the presentation of a chronological, geographical, or topical history of bells. So little information has been retained about the objects as they were acquisitioned over the years that almost nothing is known about objects in particular categories such as clappers and hammers (B). Furthermore, no exhibit has been organized for KBS directors after Jef Denyn, although each made major contributions and received important honors during their lives, many of which are preserved in memorabilia (M). Most importantly, nothing in the Carillon Museum explains and demonstrates what a carillon is, or how a carillon works and is played. By creating a digital catalog of all objects in the collection with photos and all known information about each, I have created a basis for the restructuring of the museum. Unlike previous paper catalogs, the computer database is easy to rearrange and update and allows an exhibit designer to see and compare objects without having to run around searching for each. Users can group related objects via the search function, and the object descriptions have been written to serve both as scholarly resources as well as public informational cards. Finally, making the searchable database available online means that people in any part of the world now have access to the Carillon Museum and can examine objects at high resolution. Few carillonneurs have the privilege of traveling to Mechelen for their campanological studies, so the collection can now serve as an educational resource for the international carillon community as well as the students of the KBS. Finally, the distribution of printed catalogs bundled with photo DVDs will ensure that the collection of the MKBS is noted in major carillon libraries and archives in North America and Europe. The museum has been extremely successful in its mission to conserve important campanological specimens—most of its holdings are simply donations from people who ii wanted to see these objects preserved, and the collection has thus grown to its present size of 353 objects. However, turning those objects into educational resources requires further work. My aim is to help transform the museum into a truly educational resource for the school, the municipal museum, and the international carillon community, as well as to make recommendations for the conservation of some of the most important and fragile objects in the collection. The Carillon Museum is a department of both the Stedelijk Museum Hof van Busleyden and the KBS. Unfortunately, due to financial restraints and a renovation that severed the two rooms of the MKBS from standard visitor access routes, the SMHB has grown reluctant to continue its support of the Carillon Museum and has terminated regular visiting hours to it. In the near future, the KBS hopes to acquire an annex building for itself and the Carillon Museum in which to expand. Catalogs, Past and Present Campanologist Willy Godenne published the first catalog of the MKBS in 1956 in the journal Archives, Bibliothèques et Musées de Belgique. The professionally written and researched article in French was bound separately as a book and is available in the KBS Library (2d muse 3 I.) Nearly three decades later, Pierre Ramakers, a student of Piet van den Broek, presented the next iteration of the catalog on 2 July 1983 as his final project for the KBS diploma. Entitled “Historiek en Inventaris van het Beiaardmuseum te Mechelen [History and Inventory of the Carillon Museum in Mechelen]” (KBS Library 2d rama I), it unfortunately focused on the well-known history of the school rather than that of the museum. For the most part, its contents comprised a translation of Godenne’s catalog into Dutch. Several photocopied photographs were pasted in, none of which concerned objects in the collection. Six thoughtful suggestions were offered for the improvement of the museum, but none were carried out. In 1998, a special exhibition was organized at the Carillon Museum in conjunction with the World Carillon Federation Congress that year, drawing together loans from institutions and private collections in Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and the United States of America. The catalog Vijf eeuwen klokkenkunst te Mechelen : Tentoonstellingscatalogus 27 june-30 september 1998 [Five centuries of carillon art in Mechelen : Exhibition Catalog 27 June – 30 September 1998] was published in conjunction with the event, featuring contributions from Koen Cosaert, Gilbert Huybens, Jacques Sergeys, et al. Some of the objects in the MKBS were included in that publication. Jacques Sergeys coordinated the efforts of several students in creating a comprehensive paper catalog for the MKBS to reflect the considerable expansion of its holdings since its establishment in 1955. With fields for all categories of information, this catalog had great iii potential. However, most fields were left blank, and descriptions were generally limited to one sentence. Photographs were printed as thumbnails, and the negatives are now lost. The paper format of the catalog barely fit into two unwieldy binders and was not easily modifiable. Nevertheless, this catalog at last inventoried and measured the dimensions of most of the objects in the current collection and has served as the invaluable basis for the new catalog. Not all of the items in Godenne’s catalog have entered the current publication. The SMHB has removed certain objects for display in other departments, and these may or may not be returned to the MKBS in the future. A number of precious objects were stolen over the years, and others have simply been lost track of because no inventory listed them or their locations. The task of seeking down each object was all the more difficult because none are labeled with MKBS inventory numbers. I hope that the new inventory scheme developed for this catalog will allow all objects to receive identification marks, as they should in any museum. iv The Catalog Inventory number Based on the previous inventory scheme established by Sergeys et al., the new inventory has been divided into further lettered subcategories in order to make each manageable and to recognize the significance of new areas of the collection such as bells from non-Western traditions.