luc rombouts Singing Bronze A History of Carillon Music Singing Bronze luc rombouts Singing Bronze A History of Carillon Music With the support of The Guild of Carillonneurs In North America Lipsius Leuven is an imprint of Leuven University Press Original title Zingend Brons. 500 jaar beiaardmuziek in de Lage Landen en de Nieuwe Wereld Authorized translation from the Dutch language edition published by Davidsfonds / Leuven © 2010 Dutch language edition by Davidsfonds / Leuven (Belgium) © 2014 English language edition by Leuven University Press / Universitaire Pers Leuven / Presses Universitaires de Louvain. Minderbroedersstraat 4, B-3000 Leuven All rights reserved. Except in those cases expressly determined by law, no part of this publication may be multiplied, saved in an automated datafile or made public in any way whatsoever without the express prior written consent of the publishers. isbn 978 90 5867 956 7 d/ 2014 / 1869 / 31 nur 667 Translation Communicationwise Design Korpershoek Ontwerpen Front cover illustration Carillon bells in the St. John’s Tower in Gouda (the Netherlands) Contents 11 Introduction part 1 – bell cultures in antiquity and the middle ages chapter 1 – The magic of old bells 15 A fruit with pith 17 A world of sounds 18 Made in China 21 Jingle Bells 24 Bellmen chapter 2 – The time of God 27 The daily call to prayer 28 Europe of Bells 30 The appearance of the medieval bell 32 Church doctrine and popular belief 35 Tolling for political ends chapter 3 – The time of man 39 A day in the city 40 Tolling for special events 43 New bell casting techniques 46 The bell-founder in action chapter 4 – The bondage of time 49 Clocks in monasteries and cathedrals 52 Measuring time in the open air 55 The signal becomes music – 5 – singing bronze part 2 – the old carillon art chapter 5 – A new musical instrument 59 Making music with bells 61 The terms beiaard and carillon 62 Further development of the new musical instrument 65 The first founders of carillon bells chapter 6 – Carillon music in a divided land 71 Why in the Low Countries? 74 Good and bad songs 78 Bells as commodity 80 The oldest carillon books chapter 7 – Pure bells 85 A blind nobleman with a keen sense of hearing 88 François Hemony 90 The Hemonys’ secret 91 Pieter Hemony 94 The Hemony legacy chapter 8 – Carillon music at the court 97 The successors of the Hemonys 100 The carillons of Peter the Great 103 Carillons for the young Prussians 105 Royal extravagance in Portugal chapter 9 – The Bach of the carillon 109 Peter Vanden Gheyn, monk and entrepreneur 111 Matthias Vanden Gheyn, virtuoso carillonneur 115 Andreas Jozef Vanden Gheyn, talented bell-founder 119 The descendants of the Vanden Gheyns – 6 – contents chapter 10 – Panorama of the old carillon art 121 The bells 122 The automatic mechanism 126 Manual playing 127 The carillonneurs 129 The carillon repertoire 133 The audience 135 The fate of the French Low Countries part 3 – the new carillon art chapter 11 – National Carillon 139 Carillon music riding the waves of politics 141 The confiscation of bells in the Southern Low Countries 145 Gradual restoration of the bell stock 146 The Northern Republic in the French era 148 Napoleon’s bell chapter 12 – The carillon as romantic symbol 149 The carillon, an old instrument 152 Literary interest in bells and carillons 158 The carillon at the service of nationalism chapter 13 – In search of the sound of the past 165 Bell-founding in the 19th century 168 Innovations in keyboard construction 173 Rediscovery of the art of bell tuning chapter 14 – A soul in peace, among the stars 177 A carillonneur with an interest in technique 181 Enchanting Monday evenings 185 The vision of the master 187 An American much interested in carillons – 7 – singing bronze chapter 15 – The broken bells of Flanders 191 War rages over Belgium 195 The voice of fallen carillons 200 Carillon war in the Netherlands 205 Bells of victory chapter 16 – Memorial bells 207 A school for carillonneurs 209 Carillon sounds across the Atlantic 214 Rockefeller and his Belgian carillonneurs 218 The race for bigger and heavier 222 Contours of a new carillon culture 225 New carillons in other parts of the world chapter 17 – New carillon construction in the Old Country 229 Belgian and English influence in the Netherlands 231 Protectionist reflexes in Belgium 235 Malaise among the Belgian bell-founders 238 Belgian carillons in the United States 240 The Mechelen carillon school during the interwar period chapter 18 – ‘The bells fight with us’ 249 Nazi bells 251 Carillon music in occupied territory 256 The confiscation of bells in Europe 263 Liberation chapter 19 – Dutch manufacture versus Carillon Americana 267 The return of the bells 271 Reconstruction in the Low Countries 275 A carillon without bells 278 Carillon battle in the Vatican pavilion – 8 – contents chapter 20 – Innovations in the Old and the New World 285 American Beauty 289 The American carillon movement 293 Acid rain in Europe 296 Using the computer 305 Carillon music in the East chapter 21 – Panorama of the new carillon art 309 The carillons of the world 312 Carillon organizations 314 Carillonneurs and their audience 318 The diversity of carillon music 321 A future for the carillon 325 Sources and acknowledgements 327 Notes 337 Bibliography 351 Origin of the illustrations 353 Indices – 9 – Introduction Around 1500, something unusual happened in a small region along the North Sea. In the cities of the Low Countries, bells in church and city towers were transformed into musical instruments. And thus the carillon was born, the first musical mass medium in history. A rivalry emerged between the cities for larger instruments, and city gov- ernments placed ever-greater demands concerning the sound of the bells and the quality of the playing mechanism. Bell-founders and carillon builders met these chal- lenges with varying degrees of success. Despite its enormous size, the carillon was fragile. Many instruments fell prey to fire, requisitions and the violence of war. The carillon’s existence was most threat- ened by the social changes and technological innovations of the 19th and 20th cen- turies. Yet neither the advancing individualization of society, nor compact music players such as radios, record players and mp3 players, could supplant the traditional carillon. Today there are more tower instruments than ever, and in the recent cen- tury, especially North America has played an important role in bringing innovation to the art of the carillon. Hundreds of musicians throughout the world still climb the tower stairs to distill an hour of beauty from an instrument that, according to the musical theory of evolution, should have gone extinct along with the Ancien Régime in Europe. The carillon is by nature a public instrument. It has always adorned or com- mented on important events, or it has been the product of such. Consequently, this book tells the history of the carillon from the perspective of the social context in which it developed and continues to function. The carillon was witness to 5 centuries of turbulent history in the Low Countries, also called the Netherlands, a territory that largely coincides with the present states of the Netherlands and Belgium, as well as a number of departments in Northern France. The history of the carillon is the story of rivalry between bell-founders, carillon builders and carillonneurs, with in the back- ground larger political, religious, linguistic and military conflicts. Ironically enough, some of these conflicts lifted the art of the carillon to a higher level. Belgian carillon – 11 – singing bronze culture, for example, penetrated to the United States of America as a direct outcome of the First World War, and today the carillon remains a musical link between the two countries. This book also examines the roots of the carillon. The instrument, after all, did not emerge from nowhere, but developed from 1000 years of medieval bell culture and indirectly from the bell cultures of Antiquity. Hence, in this book we will be lis- tening to the jingling bell around the neck of an Old Persian sheep as well as to the ponderous carillons of today that emanate the energy of tons of singing bronze. Until today, the geographical distribution of the carillon is largely limited to the Netherlands, Belgium and the United States. Even in these core regions, however, the general public is unfamiliar with the instrument. People usually listen to carillon music unconsciously, without knowing exactly what takes place on the inside of the tower. And they know precious little of the rich history of humanity’s largest musical instrument. Consequently, this book will reveal a piece of hidden history: the story of musical bells and of the people who developed, played and enjoyed them. – 12 – part one Bell cultures in Antiquity and the Middle Ages chapter 1 The magic of old bells A fruit with pith The bell’s history begins in the Bronze Age. With the development of the art of bronze casting around 3000 B.C., humanity took a gigantic step forward. This cast metal had numerous qualities: it was hard yet not breakable, durable yet capable of infinite reuse when remelted. Bronze could be formed into very diverse objects: strong swords, protective shields, useful axes, fireproof kitchenware, refined jewelry, beau- tiful figurines … and harmonious bells. When in 1200 B.C. bronze began to be replaced by iron as the most important material, this was not because the latter was superior in all respects, but especially because iron was easier to find and thus cheaper. To make bronze, after all, two different metals were needed: copper and tin.