APPEAL OF THE BELLS

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 56, 7 March 1930, Page 8

APPEAL OF THE BELLS

WEATHER NO DETERRENT

CARILLONNEUR'S HOPE

(From "Tho Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 21st January. Three times a day a leisurely, cosmopolitan assembly tff people concentrate upon the squara white towor in Hyd* Park. Along s>ery path they come. Those who have not heard, the Wellington Carillon stand close to the tower. Those who have heard the bells before stand off at a distance. In tho square half-mile about the tower there must be very many thousands for each concert. Each recital takes twenty minutes, and live pieces aro played. Mr. Clifford Ball, the- expert carillonneur, has the greatest satisfaction in his audiences. They grow larger and larger every day. Bain and cold aro not deterrents. "On Saturday," said Mr. Ball, when I saw him after a recital, "I walked across in a snowstorm.' There would be no recital, I thought. But when I got to the tower the people were there just the same under their thousands of umbrellas. Some, had brought newspapers to' sit on. ''The greatest -crowds come in tho evening. They probably find a more mystical impression then. The flood lights on the tower and tho dark background give an extra effect to the music. I find, too, that people arc coming to hear the bells again and again." Mr. Ball went on to speak of the electric apparatus that is .being installed to play the carillon automatically. As an artist, he naturally dislikes the idea. People came to hear the bells >in Newcastle, he said, -and afterwards ventured the opinion that they were flat and expressionless. Many of-the- audience did not know they wore being played by machinery at such times, and they got this bad impression. With the pianola apparatus there was no variety of touch, no expression. When the carillon is ■ eventually put up in Wellington it is Mr. Ball's hope and ambition that he will be there for the installation. He has had an invitation from the chairman of tho Wollington Carillon Society, and Messrs. Cadbury Brothers have also been communicated with. The matter, of course, rests mainly with Messrs. Cadbury, Mr. Ball's employers. It' goes without saying that, whoever is installed later as official carillonneur, tho public would be fortunate first to hear the bells played by.the most expert performer that England has. . One of tho first official acts of the New Zealand High Commissioner on his arrival in London was to visit Hyde Park and hear the bells. He subsequently remarked: "They are beautiful; they make an appeal to the best that is in one." . ' It is estimated that 140,000 persons gathered in Hydo Park on Sunday to hear the three recitals. The day was brilliantly sunny, and the scene- was wonderful. In the morning 30,000 listeners were present; bui later, between two and three, the throng numbered at least 70,000. For the evening recital 40,000 persons collected in the glow of the electric floodlights. Several delegates to the Five Power Naval Confererico: wore present in the morning, and a^iong the visitors who inspected the interior of the towers during the week-end were Admiral of the Fleet Sjr Charles .Madden and Lady Madden. . . •,